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The Second Ring (Chapter 5)
Posted By: Jason<promodo@tampabay.rr.com>
Date: 5 June 2004, 11:43 PM
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When we last left our intrepid Chief, the Seeing Eye had just appeared from Slipspace, a renegade band of Covenant radicals who would not admit their defeat in the previous years.
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A hijacking frequency came over the band, and the image of the approaching ships flickered to the face of an Elite for a moment, his mandibles clicking as John's translating receptors picked up his garbled words.
"I am Captain Reb Hannahz. Make peace with your gods, humans. I send you to meet them in the great Holy Plains."
The chief made a flat run that put him far above the Earth's best sprinters, reaching the bridge in a mere twenty seconds. That, however, was plenty of time for the incoming plasma to reach the critical level it needed. Captain Preston was gripping a guard-rail on the deck with a vice grip, his face red as if he felt the heat of the plasma blistering his ship's titanium coating. "Starboard thrusters give me ninety percent in emergency thrust. Antimatter dispersing mines covering removal routes. Get us out of their plasma field."
The ship lurched with a groan of metal and moving parts, the subtle thump and vibration of the glowing white canisters that ejected from its belly echoing off the walls in the bridge.
The starboard viewscreen showed the plasma burning brightly toward them before the white canisters erupted in a slow shockwave, rumbling out and then back in on themselves and pulling the massive bolts of plasma with them.
A young lieutenant on the bridge pushed his glasses up along the bridge of his sweat-soaked nose, "Firing solution achieved on their left flank, captain!"
Preston stared down past the view-screens to look beyond the protected lexan shielding of the forewindows, seeing the covenant ship on the left slowly start to pulse as it gathered plasma energy. "Wait."
The lieutenant appeared to tense along his spine, eyes a bit wide. Still, he obeyed, his fingers poised over his keypad as though a concert pianist waiting on his conductor.
The captain continued to watch for a moment longer until the silver shimmer of the covenant shields was seen. "Fire!"
As the Covenant vessel was about to launch it's deadly swarth of plasma across space, it seemed as though the UNSC ship simply reached across space and punched it cleanly in the face. A thin tracer appeared as a rope of exhaust, but it was in fact a round moving just below the speed of light. The gauss cannon had fired the shell as fast as physics allowed, stretching the image of the 30 inch wide spherical projectile into a rope, despite the fact it had already ricochetted off the covenant shields somewhere near four times by the time they could register they'd been hit. When the shields finally dropped, the sphere continued out of the ship and casually floated off into the vast emptiness of space. The ship left behind didn't spend much time to think of what had struck it, though. Instead, it dissintegrated into a burning wreck of plasma and alien metal. They never even got off a single shot.
"Well done. Reload." The captain was stern in his voice, but he knew he was nowhere near out of trouble yet. The Covenant still had four more ships.
As if to remind him of this threat, the other four ships all opened fire in unison, sending four bolts of hot plasma streaking toward their ship. More antimatter charges were released, but they managed to eat away only three of the bolts. The third made its presence known with a sudden flux in heat near the engine compartment of the UNSC ship. The plasma tore away the outer armor plates, but dispersed across the special plasma coating beneath it, an added benefit of the years of research during and after the war. However, as it was dispersed, it also destroyed this level. The Nautilus was now limping, and the enemy would target that weak-point like hungry dogs.
Preston turned toward the Chief, who through the whole battle had stood his ground, though a bit uneasily-- he never liked space battles. Too out of his hands.
The captain whipped his fingers down the corners of his lips, and then spoke in a firm tone. "Master Chief, get your men and supplies to the ship's docking bay immediately and prepare for departure."
The Chief did not need any coaxing. He activated the synaptic response for comms in his helmet and spoke in a firm tone. "Lets move, soldiers. I want Spartans in the loading dock at E2 and E3 right now." Three LEDs blinked on in his HUD, and the Chief turned toward Mendez. "Sir, it's time to go."
Mendez shifted his stance, holding the armrail for support as the MAC Guns both fired in unison, taking down one of the covenant ships resting to the right of their main vessel. "Chief, I won't be coming with you for obvious reasons, but take me in spirit. Good luck, soldier."
The Chief saluted with a stern arm, trying to keep his fingertips from shaking before he turned and ran down the cooridor, bursting through a bulkhead door labeled E2 and finding the other three Spartan soldiers already. A hand lowered almost without his knowledge, grasping an assault rifle and lifting it to his chest before he cocked the hammer back and let it snap forward.
"Spartans! It's time to move!"
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