Noble 7

"Was that your last drop shield?" Six asked.

"Afraid so," Seven answered.

"Not a problem," Six assured him.

She patched over to Five and asked, "Jorge, do you have eyes on the General?"

For a moment there was nothing. Just continued gunfire and shouts from the floor above. Then the loud crump! of a grenade and the gunfire and shouting ceased.

"Sorry about that Six," Jorge's voice finally came in. "Had a few stragglers to take care of. And yeah, I can see our shiny friend from here."

"I need you to draw his fire so we can get to the room below him," she said.

"I think I have something that'll get his attention."

Seven barely peeked around the corner with his plasma repeater and spotted the Elite General on the floor above resting its fuel rod gun on the railing of a balcony. The deep ra-tat-tat of Etilka going to work sounded remarkably like a helicopter propeller constantly striking a hard surface at full speed. A stream of fifty caliber rounds poured from Jorge's position into the General's, who retreated back inside the room as a result.

Seven turned to Six and gave her a thumbs up, then faced forward again. A bridge spanned from the room they were in and led directly to a room, the medical wing, just below the target. Seven swore he saw a glint of movement inside, and wasn't about to dismiss it as a trick of the light. Six and Seven dashed across the bridge under Jorge's covering fire and leaned against the wall just outside the medical wing. Six signaled to Seven that she wanted to take point. The two quickly changed places and Six, cautiously, moved with her shotgun.

She raised a halting fist as Seven was about to follow her in and he stayed put. From outside the door, he could see her moving slowly, slowly, carefully placing one foot in front of the other, as though wary of hidden land mines. Out of nowhere, an Elite Ultra appeared right in front of her dual-wielding plasma rifles. Seven watched in awe as Six leaned right, then ducked left, dodging point blank plasma bolts by mere inches. He wanted to intervene, but had to move out of the way when the plasma that missed her came flying at him.

Seven chose to do so by strafing left, into the room. He laid on the trigger of his repeater the whole time, and the sudden intrusion drew the Ultra's attention. It pointed both of its rifles at Seven. Then Six's shotgun barked.

The towering, white armored alien absorbed the blast like a hard punch and stumbled back a step. Seven's repeater overheated. While he clicked open the vent on the side to manually cool it, Six fired again and sent the Ultra down to one knee. and dropped to the floor. A third and final shotgun blast to the brain put the Ultra down for good.

"Go ahead," Six said as she fished out a few fresh shells to replace the spent ones.

Seven walked past her and the dead Ultra and started up a nearby ramp that led up to the top floor. He paused as gunfire went across his path at the mouth of the ramp and pelted the wall, accompanied by the ridiculous yelling of Grunts being slaughtered.

"Nooohoho!"

"God damnit!"

"WAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Seven radioed Jorge and Burke, "Hold fire, hold fire. Friendlies approaching from the north."

"Acknowledged."

Six right behind him, Seven walked the rest of the way up to the top, turned, and saw Burke, Melissa, and David jogging across a different bridge over to them. Meanwhile, Jorge stayed behind to keep the General pinned down under heavy fire.

"Long time no see," Burke commented upon arrival.

The group was standing at one end of the corridor that the General was holed up in. Even though they had both the numbers and firepower to rush in and overwhelm it, Seven didn't want to risk one or two of them being killed by a fuel rod. No one else needed to die. Except of course, for the general and his bloodthirsty strike force.

Seven retrieved his trusty M6 and brought it to bear. He pulled the trigger and it started to whine, practically imperceptibly in the presence of cacophonous exchange between Jorge and the General. He stepped out into the hallway and the General, standing near the balcony and aiming out at Jorge, turned his head and looked straight at him. That was about as far as it got.

In the very next instant, the M6 burned a bright red beam of directed energy through the General's torso. The General swayed a moment after the discharge, then dropped its weapon, fell to its knees, and face planted. Seven waved Six forward.

"Noble Six, we've reached your destination."

"I appreciate the escort," she thanked him.

She gave Burke back his shotgun before walking over to the General's body. There she scooped up its fuel rod gun and disappeared through a doorway to the right. A moment later, Emile's voice came in over the COMs, relieved.

"About time."

"Pardon me, Spartans," Jorge announced.

Seven and Burke looked up and saw the big guy standing there with his modified heavy machine gun, Etilka, and both stepped aside to allow the big guy clear passage, watching as he also disappeared into the room on the right. Burke turned to the ODSTs.

"Regroup with Warren and the others. We can handle it from here."

"You got it, boss."

"Happy hunting!"

As they trotted off, Seven was already walking over to a rocket launcher that was leaning upright against a wall near the dead General. Stubborn covie had refused even touching the thing in favor of the inferior fuel rod gun. On the floor next to the launcher was a large briefcase with the letters SPNKr stamped in big bold print on the front.

Seven picked up the launcher while Burke holstered his shotgun and knelt at the briefcase and flipped open the latches with a couple of metallic snaps. He loaded the two rockets into the launcher that Six had given him. Armed and ready to help patch the breach, they strode through the doorway on the right in unison.

It was a total wreck inside. Some sort of blast had taken a large bite out of this part of the facility. At the other end of the room, the floor, walls, and ceiling were completely missing, the only remnants of their existence being the charred and jagged edges where they had once been connected to the building.

They saw Six and Jorge standing near the edge, firing up at the same low flying Phantom dropship. The chain gun didn't appear to do much but bounce off the dropship's thick nanolaminate battle plating, but one of Six's fuel rods shellacked the chin-mounted heavy turret. Desperate, it flew close to the edge and opened its bay doors. A pair of Elites dropped out close to Jorge and Six before vanishing into thin air.

"Noble Six, watch down low," Emile advised, having seen the Elites as well.

Six directed her attention to area where they had landed and started unleashing all the fuel rods she had in the chamber. Green explosions erupted one after the other until the Elites were seen flailing through the air.

Emile laughed, "Havin' fun yet?"

A good ten meters or so behind Six and Jorge, Seven and Burke simultaneously fired a heat-seeking rocket at the Phantom which both impacted in the same instant as one of Emile's did. It was too much damage for anything short of a Spirit to brace through and the Phantom went up in an amazingly bright explosion.

Seven made note of the reticle glowing red as he aimed through the Rocket launcher's magnification lens, as well as a red square that appeared around one of the looping Banshees. Locked on, he fired. The rocket streaked through the air and curved upward as the Banshee attempted an ascending backflip to dodge it.

Bull's eye.

"Yeah, clear!" Emile exclaimed as the wrecked purple machine fell from the sky. "That's the way we get it done Spartan."

"Noble Team, Longswords are in bound and ready to push. Orbital defense is standing by to take the shot," Oran from Sword Control declared over the COMs.

Finally. We won.