(3rd Pov)
Samuel, who'd been particularly quiet ever since he had taken the bolt of plasm,a spoke up. His posture nearly said "defeated" as he seemed to build up to say something difficult, "Yeah, you guys better get going."
The four other Spartans stopped in their tracks, "What do you mean. You're coming with us," John said, a sense of dread beginning to wash over him.
Samuel sighed as he pulled the helmet off his head, "No, I'm not. My suit is ruptured, I am not getting off this thing alive," he said, his tone resigned to his fate.
"That's not a funny joke, Sam," John said, his voice teetering
Samuel gave the group of super soldiers a sad smile, "I am not joking. Not this time. My pressure seal is compromised. I'm dead the second I jump out of this ship," he gestured to the gaping hole in the titanium plating of his armor
"No. No. NO!" Kelly nearly shouted, "All of us were supposed to get off this ship together. We-we were beyond this-we are supposed to be the best," she stomped over to Samuel, and he set a hand on her shoulder gently.
"Sam-just why would you do that. I should have been the one to take that hit," John said, his fists clenched and shaking.
"You took one for me when we went after Watts, remember?" Sam said, "Besides, you're the boss, you and Dave gotta keep all of us in line," he said, nodding at David, who stood behind the group quietly.
"That doesn't matter, 'At the end of the game, both the pawn and king go back in the same box,' that's what Dr. Halsey said," John tried to reason with him disregarding the fact there was no negotiating in the situation.
"But the game's not over yet, is it?" Sam countered and turned back toward the entrance door as there began to be some banging on it from the outside.
It seemed that this would be the first Spartan casualty of the war. Not a casualty of combat but one of circumstance. Something that never should have happened, but yet it did, and Blue team would forever be changed…
… Or at least that was what it seemed.
What none of them knew was that David was thankful for the helmet as he actively fought off the will to laugh underneath it.
Daisy, who'd been watching the scene in stunned silence, turned to David, who'd been similarly quiet as a memory of what he'd said before the mission came to mind, "David, you said you grabbed a couple of things of POLYSEAL, didn't you?" she said in a whisper, leaning close to David.
"Yeah," he said, fighting the chuckles he'd been holding.
Daisy's expression quickly morphed from concern to confusion as she heard David's answer and the fact that he was trying not to laugh, "Then why-?"
David took a deep breath, recollecting his composure, "I figured I'd let John and Sam squirm a bit. Maybe listen to a heroic final speech. Wouldn't want to ruin the mood," he said as flat as ever.
Daisy looked at him with a baffled expression, her head tilted to the side as if she was studying a specimen. All the previous emotions and feelings of losing a friend and fellow Spartan evaporated. Finally, she could only shake her head…and couldn't help but smirk to herself, finding it a bit funny as well, "You're impossible,"
"Maybe," David responded with a slight shrug
"Tell my parents I-no never mind, I don't remember them anymore," Sam said, fully believing they were his last words
*cough*
The three Spartans, in sequence, turned around, hearing a dry cough, only to find David and Daisy standing side-by-side.
"I don't want to ruin the moment everyone is having, but you guys haven't even asked if there is a solution to our new problem." Daisy bumped David with her elbow, hearing how unserious he was. She face-palmed her helmet, almost embarrassed.
"What do you mean? None of us brought anything that could repair the seal-"
David whistled, getting their attention again, this time pulling a small plastic container. Scrawled on it was POLYSEAL: Universal Sealant For Exo-Atmospheric Devices. Every Spartan knew what it was; they'd used it in a multitude of exercises with scenarios in zero-G environments to mimic space.
Samuel, Kelly, and John were lost for words. David shook his head. "Catch," he lightly tossed the container over to Sam, who caught it as if he were holding his life in his hands.
*zzzztttttt*
The group turned on a bright light, which began to ignite as it slowly moved through the smooth gaps of the door, a plasma torch. Along with the sound of the metal door being melted, alien voices, deep and high-pitched, along with banging, echoed through the reactor shaft.
"They sound serious," David said, turning back from the door to look at Samuel. "Hurry up and put that on so we can get out of here," he said, pulling his shotgun down from its propped position on his shoulder.
The two members of Alpha team moved toward the exit to make sure it was clear before they made their escape. The other three of Blue team looked at each other for a moment, still reeling from the sudden events.
Eventually, John reacted, and he could only chuckle of clear relief, "Hehehe. You heard the man seal up your armor so we can leave," he patted him on his pauldron before following after the other two.
Kelly remained shocked, having completely lost her professional composure, "I-I am going to go too," she quickly hurried away.
Leaving only Sam as he began to open the container, "He really is one scary man," he said to only himself.
…
..
.
"Are you ready?" John looked over, asking Samuel as he put his helmet back on. In the place where Sam's armor had its hole, now was what looked like a patchwork of some form of solidified puddy. It stood out grey against the dull green of the titanium plating.
Samuel nodded, "As ready as I'll ever be," he said, keeping his rifle up to his chest.
"Good," John nodded, turning back up front as the Spartans had effectively formed a pack.
David up front turned to look back, "Remember, we only have 3 and a half minutes. Don't slow down. Don't stop. And don't get hit," Four affirmative check marks lit up his helmet.
"Let's do this," Kelly said, racking a shotgun slug into its chamber.
Then, with David in the front, followed by Daisy, the group began their sprint through the halls, backtracking the Blue team detachment's movements. Behind David and Daisy, who set the pace, was Kelly, then Samuel, and finally John, who insisted on pulling rear security.
Enemies popped out from various corridors attempting to ambush the group as they made their escape.
*VRRRTTTTT*
But each was met with an accurate burst of submachine gun fire. David suppressed each side, mowing down cone-headed aliens and forcing shielded ones to retreat due to the sheer volume of bullets. But those ones were not safe either, as Kelly finished off the avian and split-jaw aliens, as their shields had been chewed through.
Daisy and Samuel looked forward to snaps and bangs from their DMR and shotgun, respectively, and cleared the way. Fifteen pellets of Daisy's 8 gauge would knock out any shield, while Samuel's accurate fire would push a lead projectile through the leader alien's skull.
Whatever was left over, John in the back did his best to handle, but the force of four Spartans was more than enough to cut through the heart of the beast. Instead, he turned most of his attention to the rear, holding his assault rifle with one hand, spraying bursts of rounds to discourage any attempt to flank.
Boots thudded against the purple metal plating as they ran, sounding like a herd of elephants. A whirlwind of bullets and pellets traveled through the halls, reaching every creature that drew breath in their proximity.
The Spartans fought with the ferocity that had been trained into them, and with the ruthlessness of uncaged predators. Not one of them hesitated, questioned, or had a second thought about what they were doing; all that had happened was likened to the various scenarios in their training.
More importantly, deep down each of them felt… fulfilled.
Since the age of six, they had been cut off from the rest of civilization. They were broken down and reconstructed to be the best war fighters in history. And though they were only fourteen and fifteen years old, they knew as their bodies whispered to them as they fought, saying:
This is what you were meant to do.
A truth just for them and an accomplishment of their original purpose: To save humanity.
"We have a problem," the voice of Kelly came over the comms. The group was still running full steam ahead, the countdown eclipsing a minute and still counting down.
"Which is?" David asked, already not looking forward to what Kelly had to say.
Kelly sighed as she spoke, "We got stuck in a battle at the breach of the ship. During it, we made it inside one of the doors, and Daisy shot out the control panel so that we didn't get followed," she explained the situation.
'Shit,' David thought to himself. They had already used up all of their explosives, only having a couple of frags left between the five of them. Nowhere near enough to blow open one of the blast doors. Besides that, any other route to the massive MAC round wound on the ship would take too long to reach
'Come on, David, think! Think!' Time was running out, and there was no hope of slowing down and coming up with a solution. Whatever they did, they had to do it quickly; otherwise, forget just Samuel dying, both of the Spartan-IIs' de facto leaders and three others at the top of the class would go up in flames with them.
"AH"
A cone-headed alien grunted as it fell over onto its face after Daisy slaughtered it with her shotgun. Its plasma weapon clattered to the floor, and beside it, a blue orb the size of a baseball rolled out from the corpse. David's eyes caught it and instantly seized the rope of their survival.
He bent down, scooping up the blue ball with one hand after returning his SMG. He rolled it around in his hand, feeling the surface of the grenade. He remained running and shooting, but his attention was on the thing in his hand, his body on autopilot. He searched for a button or something to activate the plasma bomb.
Finally, after turning it over again, his thumb ran against a tab on the orange colored slot dug into the ball. He waited as the group turned another hallway into the last stretch.
He wiggled his thumb around, not knowing which way it slid, and with a tiny audible click, the ball ignited with a glowing white light. David coiled his arm before hurling it ahead of him and the rest of the Spartans at the locked door. The plasma grenade attached itself to the center of it perfectly, as if it were made out of Semtex instead.
The throwing and arming of the grenade was done perfectly. The moment the grenade went off, destroying the door, the Spartans sprinted through the gap. Now they were back outside the ship in the tunneled out wound.
Without hesitation, they got to the center of the opening and leapt out into the dark night. Their impulse thrusters reignited, giving them as much boost as possible, gaining distance from the ship.
The timer in the Spartans' helmets reached ten seconds.
"Why don't we watch the fireworks?" The Spartans paused as David's suggestion filled their comms.
They'd already cleared enough distance to be safe from the eventual blast of the ship. Also, they were forced to stay just behind the shield as it was still up until the reactor finally went boom. Besides that, a part of them wanted to see their handiwork and also be the first and only ones to see a Covenant ship blow up right in front of them.
With more green check marks, they turned reorienting themselves to look at the purple ship they'd just left.
3….2….1
With the final three seconds ticked away, they watched with bated breath. Nothing happened, and a slight sense of fear mixed with confusion almost crept in until it was washed away-
A bluish glow began to erupt from the rear center of the ship. Purple explosions were set off like a chain reaction that seemed to track all the way up from the front to the back of the ship. And finally, a few seconds later, the ship blew apart, exploding with a glare of plasma.
The Spartans used their impulse thrusters to maneuver away to avoid the debris, but not one of them would ever forget the sight they had seen today.
Today would be the first of many victories they would have against the alien menace known only as the Covenant. Today, the Covenant would hear the first of many roars of humanity's defiance and unwillingness to go quietly into the night. Today, history was mad,e and the men and women in the future would learn that even monsters bleed.
David coasted through space, his suit already activating the beacon hailing him for pick up. He sat waiting patiently, the sight of the Covenant cruiser's destruction still fresh in his mind. His mouth opened as he spoke what was on his mind, "I could get used to this."
The other Spartans couldn't help but agree.
Mission….Accomplished.
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SIKE YOU THOUGHT
Yeah go ahead and admit it who all got faked out?
I'd always planned for Samuel to survive just as I had always planned for Benjamin's death. Because to be honest... him dying or living doesn't really change all that much in the grand scheme of things. Like yeah there's an extra Spartan but that doesn't save Reach, that doesn't change the fact that he along with nearly every other Spartan-II would die if Operation: RED FLAG actually commenced.
And so I decided to have David save him, because I think it to be the most in character thing. Like come on, you didn't think David had 2-3 cans of armor sealant knowing they were jumping into an unknown alien ship. To be honest I thought it was kinda retarded in the original lore too, like obviously the UNSC would have such technology, and from a tactical standpoint the Spartans would over prepare knowing they were heading into the unknown which might not even have breathable air.
Anyway that's the Battle of Chi Ceti IV for ya. Now we can tackle the broader Halo story I plan to tell since we finally have the foundation I had planned to construct.
Again if you haven't already I'd appreciate a review with your honest thoughts and feedback on these first 31 chapters.
But that's only if you wanna, until next time with Chapter 32: Failure....