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Chapter Seven: Rise of the Phoenix
Posted By: Blue Jaguar<Crazymadsh33p@netscape.net>
Date: 10 October 2003, 11:36 PM
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CHAPTER SEVEN
01:15 (ATLAS Time) Hangar L-7 UNSC Juan De Fucas
Admiral Louis ran out the back of his shuttle, with his command group close behind him.
"What is our status!?" He shouted to one of the Juan de Fucas' officers.
"Covenant warships are starting to fall back, they are abandoning the damaged ones and preparing to scuttle them! But we have too many damaged ships to pursue them!"
"I don't care, take every ship with guns still firing and chase those bastards! Louis yelled back.
"Sir I don't think th...."
Louis cut him short. "The UNSC doesn't pay you to think, they pay you to do what I tell you to do god dammit!"
"YES SIR!" The officer replied.
The group had reached the hangar bay door and the officer opened it and then stood at attention by it. The rest of the command group went through and he followed them. They ran at a very fast pace until they reached the ships' central corridor, where they boarded a tram that sent them 1.6 klicks aft to the bridge section. Once there they left the tram and boarded an elevator which sent them to the top of the ship, where they exited onto the Bridge Deck.
"Admiral on the deck!" The watch officer shouted. Immediately everyone stood at attention.
"Dammit, pay attention, there is a battle going on!" The admiral barked at the Watch officer.
"Y-yessir." he replied.
"All right, anything new?"
"Sir, we tried to put up a perimeter around the hole in realspace, but we only managed to get a frigate as they left. One of our destroyers followed the Covenant through in their own hole, but she was destroyed when it closed on her, the other half is stuck in slipstream."
"Any ideas for getting them out?"
"None on the top of my head. We are preparing to open a new hole and follow the Covenant, but we don't know where they are going until we find the exit hole, and even they, they could have already left there."
"Yes but they will need to stop for repairs, some of their ships will need to be left behind, we can at least get them." The Admiral said, as the Juan de Fucas jolted into slipstream.
"All right, begin any repairs you can, I will be going to the CIC."
The Captain saluted and Admiral Louis left the bridge.
01:27 (ATLAS Time) Iron 5-2
Captain Luke Brown opened the hatch of his SBT.1A1 and looked out through his faceplate Around him the ground was bubbling, and on top of that were what remained of Iron 2-1. He ordered his tank forward, towards another tank that looked somewhat undestroyed. On the side of the tank was scorched paint markings, bearing half of its name, "Grunt Fr----." He jumped over onto the tank and opened the outer airlock hatch. He pressurized the airlock and then went down into the turret. Inside were bodies, but they could hardly be recognized, the tank had heated up so much that the inside had begun to melt. Several crewmen were lying on the ground, in a way that showed anguish, as they melted to the inside of the tank. "Mother of god..." he whispered. He was about to climb out when he saw something. On the ground lay a helmet, beside it the destroyed corpse of a former tanker. He picked up the helmet and read the name: 2ndLT Adrian Brown.
Luke shook as he held the helmet of his brother. He looked down at the body beside him, it was no longer recognizable. He turned away from the body, but grabbed the memory chip from inside the helmet. He would bury him later, but for now he had more Covenant to kill.
01:45 (ATLAS Time) UNSC Leyte Gulf
"That's the rest of them sir."
"Any word from Admiral Louis?"
"None sir, haven't heard anything since they jumped into slipstream."
"All right, finish up recovery operations, I am going to meet with the ground commanders at the main base down their, they still have a few Covenant troops to round up, right now they are surrendering in the hundreds they say."
"Well I would be too, with a couple hundred super tanks with their guns pointing at me."
"Heh, yeah I suppose that'd make sense."
"Sir we have incoming Emergency Action Message! ATLAS is under attack sir!" The comm officer interrupted.
"WHAT?!" Replied Rosen. "Get all ground units back loaded up and turn us around to ATLAS, leave any ships needing repairs back here and have them send constant messages everywhere reporting this."
Bridge officers began scrambling around the room, trying to regroup the fleet so they could prepare to move back to ATLAS.
"Sir, fleet is regrouping, preparing to enter slipstream in one minute." The Navigation officer reported.
"All right, I want all the ground forces to come in ten minutes after we have, I don't want them to get there first and be ripped apart, make sure they have adequate fighter cover too."
"Aye sir, deploying all remaining fighters." The flight operations officer reported.
"Sir, we only have twenty seven ships remaining, It will be slaughter if they have a large fleet."
"I don't care, we are going!"
01:59 (ATLAS Time) Iron 5-2
Captain Brown closed the hatch of his tank as it rolled up the ramp into the belly of the massive Penguin dropship. It rolled through the cargo bay until it was ordered to stop, just behind Iron 5-1. As the tank came to a stop and the systems began to shut down, he opened the hatch on the turret floor and dropped down into the cockpit. "Sorry about your brother Captain, I here his unit really gave the Covenant some serious hell." The driver, Lieutenant Yarez said.
"Yeah, I'll sure miss him."
"Any word on what is going on sir?"
"I'm not sure, I was getting ready to go find out, I'll see if I can't find whoever is in charge."
"Aye sir"
Captain Brown opened the escape hatch on the floor of the cockpit and dropped out of the tank. Their was air in the cargo bay, which meant that they were probably getting ready to take off.
"Might wanna hold on a to something important, I don't know how many chains they tied us down with but looks like we are gonna be taking off in a minute." Brown said, as he popped his head back into the cockpit.
He dropped back out and crawled the 30 feet to the front of the tank where he could finally stand. He took off his helmet and felt the sweat drip down his face. After being locked up inside a suit without a cooling unit, and inside a tank, any man would be tired. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and looked around for someone who knew just what the hell was going on.
"Captain Brown to A-Deck Immediately." A voice said through the ships' intercom. He could barely hear it through the loud noise of the engines roaring to life and the technicians working like mad to repair the tanks.
After making his way through the numerous troops and tankers in the cargo bay, he at last made it to an elevator, and began his ride up to A-Deck. C....B....A....The slammed to a stop and then opened. On A deck the dropship looked more like a real ship than anywhere else. This was the deck where troops stayed for long voyages in slipstream. It housed a small barracks, armory, and command quarters. Which was where Brown needed to be. Now hopefully, he would find out what was going on.
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