Noble 7

Whiskey-One Actual, One-2, and One-3 saw Noble Five, Noble Six, and Noble Seven directly across the facility on the next level and immediately jogged across the connecting bridge to link up. The Spartans noticed friendlies approaching on their radars and waited for them to arrive before entering the next room.

Seven was at the edge of the threshold with everyone lined up behind him, hugging the wall. Burke and his team added numbers to that line. If an Elite or such were to suddenly burst out of the room, it would most likely rush right past them and become the sole target for six different deadly guns.

Everyone patiently watched Seven peek around the corner, then pull back as glass needles and blobs of hot plasma came sailing out the doorway.

He turned to the others and his voice came through on their COMs, "Got quite the welcoming party in there. Okay, here's how we'll slice this. Jorge, you go in first."

"My pleasure," Jorge accepted.

"Advance to the left. I'll be right behind you, taking the right side," he explained to his fellow Spartan II before turning to the pink Grim Reaper. "Six, I need you to scale that sill running along the outer wall and flank them from the side."

"Copy," she said.

Finally, Seven turned to Burke.

"Major, you and your guys move in right after me. I'll sweep, you clean."

Burke grinned and simply replied, "Easy."

"Alright, on my go."

Seven held up a finger, then reached into a soft case on his hip and came out with another crystal blue orb. Jorge started pressing away from the wall, readying his chain gun. Whoever was in there was about to be meet six of the UNSC's finest.

Seven smashed the orb in the doorway and a bubble of blue energy expanded through the ceiling, floor, and walls, protecting anything and everything that entered. Jorge, the largest of the four Spartans and most heavily armored out of the whole group, entered the bubble and disappeared into the room. Seven then looked to Six, who nodded and also stepped out of line before heading back to the walkway the three of them had come up and climbed onto the sill above it. She was out of sight for less than two seconds when Seven suddenly moved in. Burke, David, and Melissa, as instructed, were right behind him.

Burke had his trusty magnum up and was peering through the iron sights as he entered. Moving through the bubble shield was like walking into an air conditioned room, then stepping right back into the humid, rank air of the war torn facility. Five, Six, and Seven took care of the majority of the covies inside, but he did manage to kill a Grunt that had its arm cocked back to throw a grenade while Seven's overheated plasma repeater was cooling down.

The grenade dropped adjacent to its dead owner and Seven turned to face Burke and the ODSTs, standing between them and the blast. It was a pretty safe distance away when it detonated, but Burke appreciated the gesture still. At least he'd protected them from an unwanted dosage of heat and radiation. The explosion behind Seven made his armor's personal energy shield flare, but it held and slowly recharged.

Jorge and Six were gunned down and ran over a lone Elite Ultra as they stomped down the hall. The others hurried to catch up, and at the rear of their column, David and Melissa dutifully put at least a round in every single alien corpse they passed, just to make sure.

As they cleared the room, Burke heard the following conversation over the COMs.

"Corvette's gonna eat this base apart. What's the situation Noble?" Oran, from Sword Control, asked.

"I can't do this on my own!" Emile shouted. "I need another Spartan up here!"

"Six, get to the top floor and assist Emile," Carter repeated, this time more urgent.

Everyone immediately picked up the pace. At the end of the hallway was a left turn that Burke knew gave way to another bridge, one that doubled as a ramp up to the third floor. Six was out in front, and held up a fist to bring the column to a halt at the turn. Despite Carter's insistence, the waited while she left to do a little reconnaissance and returned to the column a few moments later.

"Careful," she advised. "An Elite General is up on the fourth floor shooting fuel rods down at Carter and the others. They have his attention for now, but don't linger. Get across as quick as possible. Me first."

She took off in a sprint after a finger of count of three, quickly followed by Seven, then Burke, Melissa, and David. Jorge, the heaviest, waited at the door for everyone to go on ahead of him.

An orange-clad Elite Major came walking nonchalantly out of the room they were headed to and stood at the mouth of the ramp, flanked on either side by an infantry Jackal. He finally looked over, and the mere sight of all those armored soldiers sprinting across the bridge startled the crap out of him. For a few seconds it appeared too flustered to even respond, and just when it seemed to have collected its bearings, the hollow crack of a sniper rifle echoed throughout the facility. The Major fell straight back with a smoking hole in its forehead.

Jun cheered over the COMs, "Solid hit!"

Both Jackals meekly raised their weapons as Six let off a spray of buckshot that flung them off their feet quick enough to give them whiplash. Had that not killed them, they were definitely no more by the time the thorough ODSTs arrived. Seven took position at the edge of an open room to their left, aiming, but not firing, at something around the corner.

Straight past this room was wall that divided it from the corridor on the other side. Six and Burke kept watch so Jorge could cross the bridge and rejoin them, then watched as he lumbered past them, past the room, and down the corridor spitting out six-hundred and twenty-five rounds per minute. Etilka truly was the bane of the Covenant, or pretty much any living organism opposing her.

Six said to Burke, "You guys go with him. Seven and I will head across and try to flank the General from below. Just keep him busy."

"Easy."

Burke nodded to his ODSTs, then followed Jorge into the corridor.