Unit Mission: Seventh Marines

[rookie425]

HA Vivian Nyro
UNSC 7th Marines, 1st Battalion, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon
False Alarm


Keeping as cool and composed as possible, Vivian breathed slowly as her eyes flicked back and forth down the hall. She heard footfalls just then, multiple steps with weight. Not as heavy as an Elite's though, she knew that much. Not before long, a fireteam of ODSTs arrived charged and locked. With a quiet sigh, Nyro pushed off one leg and lowered her weapon to a comfort carry.

"Sirs," she addressed them, looking between Kai and the newer one issuing the orders, who soon identified himself as a Lieutenant Krevchenkov. She wasn't up to par on nicknames just yet, and Titan seemed far too informal for someone outside of his unit, so she settled with "Lieutenant." It would be a bit longer before she could bring herself to even call Kai by his callsign.

"Vivian Nyro," she introduced herself, addressing the man. "Corpsman. The Marines that were with me were just helping move a casualty. I only grabbed three of them, all of which were on outside security. I didn't want them to get heat for being away from their perimeter security posts for too long, so I felt okay with them leaving all at once. I knew that Staff Sergeant Blacklock's team was still in the area."

[RiddL]

First Lieutenant Alexei (Titan) Krevchenkov
153rd ODST
Possible contact

Alexei nodded as he received the SITREP and replied calmly,

"Never the less we have to leave soon, as you have obviously heard there is Spec Ops in the area and that they have found the body of one, we ne..."

"Titan, possible contact, 10 meters left" Came Spiders voice.

"Oh Shit!" Alexei breathed as he heard that. He moved as quietly as he could to the entrance and peeked around the corner, seeing the light slightly refracting off something that wasn't there, he reached down and pulled out his Magnum and placed a paint round in the chamber and took aim at where the light was refracting and held his breath. He readied his finger on the trigger and turned to the others

"Ok tell me when your ready to light this fucker up, Corpsman, this thing is is right outside and about to be angry with some paint on his armour, when I give the signal, run to the end of this hallway and head for the Operations Centre, we will kill this one and catch up, your responsibility is to tell everyone that they have infiltrated the ship." Titan said quietly as refocused on where the Elite was, he looked back and forth and realised it had left and moved further into the ship.

"Fuck, All Angel and Tornado elements be advised, contacts are inside the freighter, I say again, Contacts are in the freighter, moving to engage."

He turned to the others and and gave a nod before raising his shotgun and leaving the room, Sergei, Spider and Hellfire in tow.

"If you want to join us you can, but in a firefight, leave it to us" He said quickly.

[Astro]

████ Hours, December ██, 2547 (Military Calendar) /
Sanctuary, Hope

LCpl Jock McPherson
7th Marine Regiment, 1st Battalion
Tornado 2-4, Fireteam Alpha


"That's a big ship."

"Yeah."

"Glad we're not in there."

"Yep."

"You're the worst person I've ever held a conversation with, you know that?"

"Yup."

Jock narrowed his eyes at the Private First Class who had caused him to fall off a roof. Irfan Ahmadi, Fireteam Bravo, was one of those guys the Lance Corporal didn't like. This was mainly because the PFC was smarter than him. Sure, Jock could load an M247 quicker than Ahmadi could say 'trigonometry", and yes, he could put a good amount of ammo into a hostile target's midsection, but that was quickly stumped by the PFC's smug corrections, quips and one-liners. Ahmadi showed him up whenever Jock made a jab at him. It had become pretty regular for the Lance Corporal to make an ass of himself in front of Fireteam Bravo.

"You're a motherfucker, you know that Ahmadi?" Jock shook his head, scanning the area in front of him. The freighter was to their backs and they were on perimeter security. The members of Tornado 2-4 were spread out among a large collection of dark, mossy boulders, using the huge rocks to deploy bipods and shield themselves from potential enemy fire. Unluckily, both Fireteams were pretty much rubbing shoulders and Jock and Irfan were right in the middle.

"A motherfucker? I thought it was Scotland that did that kind of thing," Ahmadi shot back. "How is Lorna, anyway? Been a while since we, er, saw each other."

Corporal Warren near pissed himself at that. When Jock fell silent to fume to himself, Warren called out from his place at the far end of the collection of rocks, "What's wrong, Jock? You gonna let him get away with that, or has the cat gotcha tongue?"

"Nah, he's probably saving it for his mother."

Warren and the rest of Bravo roared with laughter. Jock's frown didn't get much happier. Fucking Ahmadi...

---

Sergeant Craig Allen
7th Marine Regiment, 1st Battalion

Playing hopscotch around corpses wasn't really fun at all. Dead civilians, men and women, littered the deck. Even though it was dark, Sergeant Allen could still make out the outlines of the pained faces. Some still looked terrified, as if the evil that took their lives still had an effect on them, even after death. The rest of the people were either face-down or burnt beyond recognition by plasma. As he stepped past the last of the charred remains, crossing the large Hangar Bay, McKeal spoke up.

"Sergeant Allen - it's clear, for now. Let's get you to the operations center."

"Sounds good, Staff," Allen nodded, turning around to see Searle and Granger crossing the sea of death. "Come on lads."

The dark passageways weren't really much to look at. In fact, nothing was much to look at because Allen couldn't see a damn thing. Surely at least one torch in this pitch-black maze could be allowed for basic navigation. If he remembered rightly, torch beams hitting an Elite's active camouflage against a dark backdrop would light the alien bastard up like a Christmas tree. Maybe not. It wasn't really in his MOS to be dealing with this kind of thing. Regardless of that, he had a rifle and he'd fire it if a bunch of splitjaws with invisibility cloaks came dashing around the corner.

"If we take a left here, we'll be able to head into the maintenance access ways. In there, it looks like there's a set of ladders that we can use to lay topside," relayed Allen to the Staff Sergeant. "We head up six decks and we'll be in the maintenance room right beside the Ops Centre. Maintenance doors and hatches will open regardless of power, so we're good there. Other route'll probably take us a good twenty minutes and there's gonna be a lot of doors deadlocked and a lot of blast-doors down due to the crash, so, maybe double or triple that."

Allen put his datapad away. The layout of the ship was pretty easy to follow and each deck was practically identical. Either way he'd more than likely be able to navigate through. However, he felt a lot safer with his hands focused on his rifle rather than his tablet, especially with the mention of SpecOps Covenant.

"Your call, Staff." he said, shouldering his MA5.

[rookie425]

HA Vivian Nyro
UNSC 7th Marines, 1st Battalion, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon
Nothing to it

Vivian filed out of the room last after the ODST group exited into the hallway. Shoulder to shoulder with one of them, she kept her eyes down the hallway, grip tight to her M7, stock snug to her shoulder. Silently, she weighed her options between rushing away in the event of a fight and staying with the fireteam. She felt safer, more secure with the handful of operators than she would rushing out with an invisible threat at large. At that, she wasn’t entirely green either. Having brought down an Elite Ranger in the past, she knew that sustained fire was the key to beating shields that were on a shared power supply with EVA gear or active camouflage. There was nothing to it, she muttered inaudibly to fill herself with a sense of valor.


“Don’t worry about me,” she said, reaching back and blindly patting the ODST beside her. “I’m issued a weapon for a reason. I can take care of myself.”

[RiddL]

First Lieutenant Alexei (Titan) Krevchenkov
153rd ODSTs
4th Platoon
more info concerning him
On the Hunt

Alexei gave a grunt of approval at the young womans words and moved quickly and quietly through the ship, checking corners and watching out for any glimmers or distortion that betrayed an Elites position. He turned around a corner and took two steps before tripping over something and turning back towards whatever it was.

A dead Marine lay there, cut from shoulder to hip that virtually split him into two. he knelt down and closed the mans eyes gently before saying a small prayer and pressed his fingers against the cut and felt the heat coming of the cut.

"We're getting close, guns up and keep a keen eye out, we don't want to end up like him." He said gesturing to the body as he stretched to full height, no longer slouching and makiing sure he rose to the full six and a half feet of muscle and little fat. He snarled and regained his temper, putting it under a leash and started moving again. He turned and saw to more Marines laying there, one dead and the other barely conscious. He moved up and gestured to Nyro to see to the man. He moved up another couple of feet and turned around a corner.

UNSC GM Edit: Special Operation Sangheili have not revealed their location, mainly because they're still roaming the large ship. When they reveal themselves, a post will be made.

[Cabel]

[Tranquilitas Beta: Moon Sanctuary: Alpha Company: 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment: At the Downed Freighter: Captain Mark “Spade” Seamus Sorelson: Year 2547]

Scanning the area both visually with a pair of standard-issued field glasses and with an ear to the company-wide encrypted frequency shared by Alpha Company and the One-Fifty-Third ODST Company open to monitoring when and where the Covenant Spec-Ops team infiltrated their lines, if they hadn’t boarded the downed freighter already. The Covenant’s light-refracting tech rendered the seven foot average bipedal aliens invisible to sight and even to a degree thermal sight which often meant the only indications the UNSC marines knew of a Covenant Spec-Ops’ Team’s presence had been either a plasma sword to the gut or when marine squads along a perimeter went silent. The standard marine equipment mainly built-into the CH52 helmets contained infra-red sights that had been issued more out of necessity over the prolonged war than what the marines had carried in the outset of the war, and there hadn’t been a day when Mark had missed those days. He’d remembered in the early days after the war against the religious coalition if you could call it that had started their genocidal program of eradication on one human world after another that Mark had been forced to rely along with his marine brothers and sisters on noticing the shimmer of light and the terrain when one of the bipedal aliens had moved, and if they had been lucky had been able to get off a few rounds off.

“Fuck, All Angel and tornado elements be advised. Contacts are inside the freight, I say again, Contacts are in the freighter. Moving to engage,” rang a broadcast over the company-wide encrypted frequency from Angel Four Actual, which had been identified by his HUD as a First Lieutenant Alexei “Titan” Krevchenkov.

“Tornado Actual to Guardian Actual, we weren’t the first to this party favor,” Mark relayed over the encrypted Regimental frequency to the Colonel’s headquarters while checking to see if the MA5C had a fresh magazine which it did followed by having snapped the bolt back chambering a round. Climbing out of the warthog’s driver’s seat, he’d let the young Lance Corporal take the wheel for once and signaled for the marines in the four warthogs to accompany him inside, albeit with the vehicles considering how large the corridors of a freighter at least by the blueprints had been. An idea struck him while approaching a hole in the hull where portions of the hull plating had been ripped apart on impact drawing on the fact the Elite SpecOps tended using light refracting technology or in terms a marine understood a cloaking device hearkening from the old days of science-fiction. The notion the Elite SpecOps used the cloaking devices to hide themselves from being spotted save for if a marine had been paying careful attention combined with the fact reports of a Covenant SpecOps team had been made from inside the downed freighter had meant that the infrared-viewers had been out of the picture. Following the violent planet-fall a week ago, the ship’s systems still had to cool and with the heat from the still cooling systems combined with any received from the atmospheric friction had caused the infrared-viewers to overload from the surrounding heat. Normally a ship that size he’d thought would have cooled off considerably after making a planet-fall, but in his years in the Corps he’d witnessed only a few planet-bound ship-wrecks ranging from both the UNSC Navy and the Covenant. The most notable one had been a Marathon Class Heavy Cruiser that had managed to have taken tremendous punishment in an orbital engagement before finding a grave on the planet Artifice. That had been a fun mission, if you didn't mind finding sand in places one didn't even know they had.

With the infrared-viewers rendered virtually useless, the aging marine Captain had been forced to come up with another idea to turn the situation in favor of the marines, and in rendering one of the technological advantages of the Covenant Spec-Ops team useless. The Covenant regarded their technology all too highly, and while their SpecOps teams had the ability to refract light rendering them invisible or almost invisible Mark had never been a massive fan of holding technology on a higher pedestal than instinct. Having climbed through the jagged hole in the hull carefully, Mark had found himself in one of the crew‘s quarters strewn with personal objects, bedding material and anything else that had been tossed around on impact with the moon. The impact had ripped a hole clean through both the outer hull and the inner pressure hull and into one of the crew‘s quarters, and even after clearing the hole Mark had been forced to climb over a series of twisted bunks to purchase clear footing on the deck. The Warthogs, he‘d realized hadn‘t been able to follow and it would have created even more of a hazard if they had with the damage sustained to the ship‘s frame. He should have anticipated the kind of structural damage the ship had taken after the crash, but he‘d been more focused on finding the ODST team sent into the freighter before the Covenant had found them. Some lessons had to be learned the hard way, or so his father the old Detective would say.

Scanning the room both visually and with his weapon, he’d noticed the quarters had been void of the remains either of the crew, the marines or of the Covenant. Methodically, the aging Marine checked the compartment and even the overturned items for any eavesdropping device to any incendiary surprises his counterparts could have left behind. Once he’d been satisfied the compartment had checked clean for any such surprises, Spade gestured back to through the opening to the marines waiting outside. Carefully gesturing to the other marines that had followed him to be quiet while clearing the jagged hole, Mark knew if he’d been the one scouring through the wreck for some item he would have taken precautions considering the compartment had been swept clean of surprises. While the marines and ODSTs cleared the hole one at a time, the aging marine quietly listened for anything that might have been on the other side of the closed hatch, an old fashioned pressure hatch that had for the most part fallen out of use with the exception of old freighters and wet-surface navy ships. Knowing the Covenant SpecOps team had most likely become more preoccupied on tracking down and eliminating the ODST scout team that had infiltrated the freighter’s hull to look for survivors or to secure the NavCom, Mark had a pretty good feeling that the aliens wouldn’t have kept a lookout or sentry to watch their backs. If there had been one thing Mark had brought from his earlier years had been that the Covenant had been arrogant, and hadn’t respected the human species well enough to understand how driven they could have been. It hadn’t escaped him that the SpecOps team would have anticipated UNSC reinforcements pouring into the freighter, but while the Covenant had to have anticipated UNSC marines and even the special force talents of the ODST Corps there hadn’t been any way they could have anticipated catching the ire of an old Marine Force Recon operative and an old Drill Instructor.

Slowly unlocking the still functional hatch of the compartment enough for him to have peered around the bulkhead, his eyes swept the recreation room beyond searching for any tell-tale signs something waited for them. Satisfied after a few minutes, the aging marine stepped over the knee-knocker with the other marines leap-frogging behind him. Eying the hatch for the recreation room to find it had remained closed, the aging marine looked around to find the compartment had seen better days. The only things that had remained anchored in place had been an old false wood paneled bar complete with its taps along the port-side bulkhead and a pool table that had been bolted to the deck. The wall-mounted frame that had held the pool cues had been knocked loose, splintering into various fragments along with the pool cues and the pool balls had rolled around unobstructed on the deck. Carefully stepping over or around the pool balls, Mark crossed the deck towards the intact bar hoping to find what his plan had hinged on. Having remained firmly in place on its wall mounted brackets, a muted red fire extinguisher had remained in place and from the looks of it none of the ship’s complement had managed to make find refuge in the compartment either. Letting the MA5C hang at his side, Mark reached over picking up the fire extinguisher with CO2 and carefully slid it from the wall-mounted brackets to find it had remained full and the seal hadn’t even been broken on the release handle.

* * * * * *

Even with the differences existing between civilian freighters and the combat-capable naval ships of the UNSC, most of the changes had been cosmetic in the form of crew comfort such as video-screens, massive game rooms and other amenities in which the civilian crews could enjoy whenever they pleased that combat-purposed ships kept only to keep the crew relaxed between missions. The maps one of the ODSTs had discovered in the crew’s recreation room had given them a better idea of the layout of the ship and the routes to the bridge along with other more sensitive area, but while it gave the marines a chance to orient themselves in the massive freighter the reality there were cloaked Covenant SpecOps roaming around only meant that the marines had to be deliberate. The maps had indicated the existence of maintenance corridors spanning the length of the ship and across the various decks, but Mark had to assume his Covenant counterpart would have anticipated any UNSC reinforcements would have utilized those same corridors. He would have anticipated it, and left a few surprises or at least a few commandos behind to hinder any reinforcements. Under that assumption, Spade and the other marines had to resort to the main corridors and would have to check the compartments individually. Taking the time to scan the maps with his HUD, Mark waited while the other marines and ODSTs secured CO2 fire extinguishers of their own that had been found in storage closets and other areas in the compartment and waited while they scanned the maps as well with their HUDs. Checking each of the marines and ODSTs to see if the extinguishers had been properly secured with quick access, Mark felt satisfied and picked his rifle up again before placing the maps in his rucksack. With a marine on both interior sides of the hatch, an old pressure hatch, Mark turned the wheel unlocking it and slowly opened it and made sure to sweep the corridor adjacent with his own rifle. Making sure the corridor had been cleared or if it hadn’t plasma would have seared the frame of the hatch in response, the aging marine set a foot out of the hatch onto the other side of the knee-knocker and planted himself firmly along the bulkhead opposite of the hatch.

Taking a few steps down the corridor, he’d kept the rifle before him and on seeing that particular corridor had been empty of any faint flickering of lighting signaled to the other marines to follow. One by one, the rescue team slipped out of the recreation room into the adjacent corridor with the last one quietly closing the hatch behind them. It wouldn’t do to give the Covenant a visible sign any further UNSC marines had entered the wreck, or to give the Covenant a place to hide even though Mark knew the marines of Alpha Company and the One-Fifty-Third lay beyond with weapons loaded and alert. With each of the marines and ODSTs bearing a CO2 extinguisher firmly secured on their backs with the hoses unhooked for easy access, it played into Mark’s plan well enough. The plan held that Mark with his marines and ODSTs in tow would search the ship, and if they’d encountered or even if one of them spotted a faint flicker or environmental distortion would open the valves of the CO2 fire extinguishers to coat the Covenant SpecOps operative in the foam. The CO2 foam had been cold enough under pressure to coat anything it struck for at least a while before it melted, and even with the Covenant’s light refracting technology it leveled the odds in the favor of the marines. Taking the corridors one at a time while securing each compartment individually, Mark’s team covered ground leapfrogging and covering each other with the extinguishers at the ready. Even Mark felt the full CO2 extinguisher properly secured in place below his own armored rucksack, and felt the cable and nozzle at his side.

[MrKill]

Colonel Johnathon Killinger
Seventh Marines
Regiment HQ

John mused over the fact Sorelson had reported cloaked elites in the area of operations. On the holo-table the crashed freighter was now marked with the symbols for potential special operations elites. A message was going out to all UNSC personnel to expect Covenant special operators, VIA the regiments radio transmission officer. John still had his responsibilities, the information gathered from the navigational systems was a priority for him to know. Ultimately, he predicted the Covenant were first to arrive on the scene.

John replied on the encrypted link, "Solid copy Tornado Actual. Stand by for orders."

What the fuck can I do?! John thought. He knew that casualties were about to mount up, and the pressure from second battalions commanding officer, who was now just a Captain as the Lieutenant Colonel and Major had died succumbed to their injuries. The more he thought, the worse he felt about the situation. They only had one solution, they needed to find out what was on that NAV data-base.

"Tornado Actual, orders remain unchanged: Secure the freighter and identify what information was leaked. Guardian Actual out." John said, knowing full well that may be the last time he ever spoke with Sorelson No one can accuse me of fraternization... John thought bitterly.

Staff Sergeant McKeal
1/7, A Co., 1PLT
Inside downed freighter

"Man, this thing hit the dirt hard." A Marine relayed out as he examined the access ramp Allen had indicated. "Warped and... bent, Staff." The man described. McKeal groaned in unsatisfactory and examined the hall way. By now Marines had to navigate with their tactical lights, but the corridor was rather small. Sure, elites would see the light, but the Marines would also see the shimmer of their stealth technology.

McKeal made a proactive decision, "Plant some explosive on it, then. If we can't use it, I don't want the Covenant cutting their way through the debris to beat us to the operations center."

"They'l-" A Marine began to protest.

"Just do it," McKeal said. A Marine with the proper equipment stepped forward and rigged the plastic explosive to the damaged section of the interior hull. He closed the hatch when he returned and cleared the area. A few seconds later the hatch flew off, engulfing the area where he just stood in flames, but they died out quickly. The way up was not completely blocked, but impossible to climb up without cutting yourself significantly. Elites may try to send grunts up, as grunts were noticeably 'less than' elites in what ever military ranking system they used.

"We'll hit another maintenance access and head up that way, I don't fancy taking the long way and cutting through some doors along the way. I have no idea where the fuck we're going, so you're going to have to lead the way, but four of my Marines will stay in front of you for protection." McKeal said.

"When you're ready, Sarge." Another Marine said, giving him the thumbs up. Allen may have been a POG, but right now, they were all stupid enough to end up in this pile of steaming shit and dead bodies.

[MrKill]

[TAG: All UNSC PCs]

[The Marines in Forth and Fifth Battalions have successfully fended off an attacking force, but have suffered heavy casualties (Check page 1 for casualty report) during the time 1/7 Marines, Alpha Company and 153rd ODSTs were securing the crashed civilian freighter.

On board the freighter a group of thirty special operations elites scour the civilian freighter for any information or personnel that can grant them access to the navigational information they seek. Some elites, particularly highly skilled and veteran warriors close in on McKeal's position.

Another group of these skilled Covenant troops have located Krevchenkov and his orbital drop shock troopers. You have three options: Flee further into the severely damaged and burning freighter, flee from the freighter or die, you will not win in a fire-fight.]

[rookie425]

HA Vivian Nyro
UNSC 7th Marines, 1st Battalion, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon
Bait

Nyro was close in tow with the ODSTs. By now she had switched herself to full awareness, all bu forgetting the idea of combat lifesaving and focusing more on her abilities as a soldier. That quickly changed when the scent of burnt flesh and stomach contents reached her. She was able to visualize the state of the casualty before she even saw it; severed in half from waist to shoulder. When the Lieutenant gestured to the second wounded, she took a moment to sweep her surroundings, and seeing as Alexei moved ahead for more coverage, she had the security she needed.

She took a knee beside the groaning crewman, causing the man to shoot awake "Help," was all he could manage.

Vivian put a hand to his mouth as she readied her scanner. "Don't talk, don't move." She pulled her hand away. "Just breathe."

As her scanner calibrated, she panned over his body. His shirt was stained with a small splotch of blood that surrounded two evenly spaced entry wounds over his abdomen. At the source of the wound, the once clean white fabric was now scorched and blackened, clinging to the sticky mixture of blood and burnt tissue around the opening.

Doing her best not to move the man, she glanced behind him. Even superheated plasma wounds bled a little. Impact happens first usually. There was none. Even her scanner conclude no pass-through, no exit wounds. Her brief training told her to look out for Elites wielding energy based, close range weaponry, but this was the first she had ever seen it. If the first casualty was anything to gauge by, whatever did that could have killed this man outright, much less stab him all the way through. Why leave him alive?

A sickly feeling of doubt surged through her. Quickly filling the wounds with biofoam, she tore up her M7 and looked to Alexei. Toying with her mic, she spoke on teamcomm for silence. "Lieutenant. I need to move this man. I think we should egress."

[RiddL]

First Lieutenant Alexei (Titan) Krevchenkov
153rd ODST
Lost radio contact

Alexei waited before turning and motioning for Nyro to get the man ready to move. He kept an eye out for anything strange and heard a voice crackle into his helmet.

"Lieutenant, this is Sergeant McKoy, we may have a contact on our rear but we aren't to..." The line went dead as the sound of plasma fire erupted and killed the man.

Alexei went into battle mode and looked over at the Staff Sergeant and Nyro, "Time for you to leave, we'll hold em here so move"

As the left his team got into position with cover, just as plasma started firing at them from an entrance, "Overlapping fields of fire, kill it quickly so we can get back to those three"

As a team trained together, they fired as one and blocked out the deafening gunfire.

Staff Sergeant Kai (Wolf) Blacklock
153rd ODST
Pissbolting to find an exit.


Kai ran to the wounded man and placed him over his shoulder in a fireman hold, he looked at Nyro and that was when the gunfire started, he held out his Rifle and gestured for her to take it

"This has a little more kick than most rifles but I put hollow point rounds in there, basically, shoot at something and it will disappear." He said heatedly as the marine on his shoulder groaned in pain.


It was time to leave.

[rookie425]

HA Vivian Nyro
UNSC 7th Marines, 1st Battalion, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon
Comfort Zone



Vivian respectfully declined Blacklock's rifle with a wave that she managed mid-transition to her own MA5C. Hollow points worked magic against targets, especially soft ones, but truthfully she was just sick of having weapons shoved into her hands. The random patterns of weapons fire were deafening, even this far away from Alexei's team. Going back the way they came was about where she ran out of ideas. Looking deeper into the ship, she felt her skin crawl at the unknown. What parts of the ship had been compromised and were deteriorating? How deep had the SpecOps dug into?



She led them partway down the hall, just far enough to get out of sight, then reached back, below her ruck and withdrew her NOD from its respective pouch. They settled into her helmet's NVG mount with a click and came to life with the push of a button  after she flipped them over her eyes. The dark hall was quickly illuminated with a dim green glow, every crevice, crack, and edge mapped with various lines and edges.



"Clear."



Advancing, Nyro kept her MA5 in standoff position. She had to fight the urge to look back over her shoulder, hoping that Kai was doing his part in covering rear defense.

[Guardian Cat of Yappa's]

Captain Kelvin Duncan
1/7, 53rd CE, A Co
Regiment Headquarters
Company on Standby

Duncan stood in the back corner of the operations center, watching the information come in on the holo table. Duncan had ordered his company to set up defenses around the school, but they finished that hours ago. So now they were waiting on standby, waiting for orders from the colonel.  As the time with by, Duncan kept up with what his company was doing. 1st and 2nd Platoon had decided to set up sandbags on the roof, well 3rd Platoon was working on the vehicles in the motorpool. 

He'd stopped paying attention to the holotable for awhile now, more focused on making sure his platoon leaders had their men doing something productive. The flash of warning lights on the holotable brought Duncan back to what was going on in the room. He moved closer to the table so he could see the indicators that had appeared on the table. Duncan stiffened up when he saw which indicators they were. Special Operations Elites, in our AO. Soon a message appeared on his hud alerting him to their presence. 

He heard the colonel speak up in front of him, "Tornado Actual, orders remain unchanged: Secure the freighter and identify what information was leaked. Guardian Actual out."
Duncan looked at the display, they're close to us. His eyes left the table as he looked up to the Colonel.

"Colonel sir, my men need orders." He said standing at ease behind the officer.

---

Sergeant Maximilian "Drake" Fields
1/7, A Co, 1st PLT, 1st Squad
Crashed Freighter
Hostiles Inbound

Drake had been rather passive during their entry into the crashsite and it's exploration so far. He trusted McKeal though, glad that he was the marine that had his back. Though he wasn't happy about the fact about what else was in this wreck. The presence of a marine killed by plasma indicated covvies, probably elites from the looks of it, and they had to get this POG to the nav computers. "McKeal, My Squad will take point." 

He turned to a private that was standing behind him, "Pvt Barrington, on point, rest of you follow behind him."  He lifted his rifle, Crouching by Sergeant Allen, "You better know what you're doing Sarge." His eyes aimed down the hallway towards the direction his squad would move.

[BasedGoody]

PRIVATE BARRY BARRINGTON
CRASHED FREIGHTER

Point?

POINT?

The marine knew he was going to die before, but the first man in? Barry nodded, knowing that arguing wouldn't help. The invisible lizards where probably breathing down his neck already. They where waiting to squish him like a bug while he stood there none the wiser. Nevertheless he walked forward slowly raising his Assault Rifle. A full magazine was his saving grace. The second he saw the slightest glimpse of danger he knew every round would be out.

 Barrington trusted his allies to give assistance too, at least until they were picked off one by one. Those things were literal demons. The Private knew that he was just a rat in their maze; but there was no reward for escaping. Hell, there was no escape either. There was hope, the slightest shimmering bit of it that clung on to his heart. It tried to reason with fear, but fear was not one to listen.

He walked down the hall, the utter silence in his mind being only broken by the clanging of his boots, step by step. They were amplified in his mind and he was sure that every alien in the ship could hear them. Barry's eyes were focused in front of him while his peripheral vision scanned next to, above, and below him like that was it's job.

The Private's mind was on a loop of fear over and over again. It didn't stop, like a broken record. Occasionally the hope would slip herself in. It reassured the soldier and gave him the strength to push on. But it was only there for a second before it was whisked away by the black silhouetted body of his ever-so-prevalent friend. 

The marine kept on his way with his brothers behind him. It seemed as if they weren't there until hope slipped into his mind. She reminded Barry that he still had all those people that stuck with him through everything else. She reminded him that everything would be okay. Then fear took control as the walls closed in on him. By now he was on auto-pilot. He walked forward, gun raised, while his mind went on a terrifying adventure through the inner recesses of his brain and ripped it into a morbid shell of horror.

[John]

Second Lieutenant Charles Callaghan
1/7, Company C, Third Platoon
In reserve

The young Lieutenant had been held in reserve, ready to bounce at a moment's notice. He hated this. The man wanted to be out there so that he could prove himself, and maybe get a commendation while he was doing it. The men were okay with it, though. The less they'd have to do, the better.

Then the call came down. The platoon was called up. The only problem was that the Pelicans had been re-tasked, which meant they'd have to leg it. The Lieutenant grabbed his gear, and told the Staff Sergeant what was going on. He immediately sprung to action and had the Marines get ready to move.

Ten minutes later, the forty Marines were marching towards the objective at a quick pace.

[Astro]

████ Hours, December ██, 2547 (Military Calendar) /
Sanctuary, Hope

Sergeant Craig Allen
7th MEB, 21st Communications Battalion
Attached to Seventh Marines, First Battalion, Alpha Company

Allen had now been given the responsibility of leading the way, despite the fireteam now ahead of him. After studying his datapad for a decent amount of time, the simple layout of the ship was in his head. If they turned left here, they'd head down a fairly long passageway. On their right there would be a door marked 'MAINTENANCE' with a deck number and letter printed next to it, showing which maintenance access on the deck it was. Said accessways didn't follow the standard deadlock protocols on this civilian vessel. It was a simple case of removing the key-panel and resetting the bolts.

"Hang a left down here. Maintenance should be on our right." Sergeant Allen instructed, following the men down the dark tunnel of a passageway. As they continued further down the lightless path, Allen began to clutch his MA5 tighter. The thought of an invisible ambush scared the shit out of him. He'd barely seen combat against standard infantry and now he was right in the thick of it with the Covenant's finest.

His heart rate doubled when two red dots came into view. Like evil eyes in the night, they glared at him, coming closer with each footfall, each inch of the way. It was hard to keep his finger from moving off of his rifle's receiver. Trigger etiquette taught servicemen to only go near the trigger if something at the other end the barrel needed killing. Focusing on the now clear lights, Allen strayed from pressing the MA5's shooty-bang-bang button.

"Looks like it," Allen was relieved, learning all of a sudden that the ominous eyes of death were just warning lights on the maintenance door. "Searle. Get me the size four crosshead and a multitool. Granger. Wires. Red black."

As the two Marines rummaged around for the requested items, Allen crouched beside the door's numerical keypad. He tapped on the keys a few times before pressing the 'CONFIRM' key, but nothing happened. He even attempted to push the door sideways too, to slide it open, but his suspicions were confirmed: the door bolts were holding the entire thing shut.

"Sarge." Searle murmured, handing over the items. Private Granger crouched beside Allen and kept the wires in his hands. Moments later, the six screws holding the panel together were on the floor, grouped together. Then, Granger took the loose panel and set it down, trading Allen for the wires he had.

"This shouldn't take a minute, Staff. Same principle as UNSC craft," the Sergeant half-smiled, connecting the multitool, the wires and the door together. "Granger. Gloves on."

Ryan was already putting his insulated hand-protection on. He murmured something about being ready and stuck his gloved fingers into the circuitry. A tiny component, barely graspable with the thick gloves, found itself being fiddled with. After a bit of effort, the Private ripped it out. The moment he did, Sergeant Allen used the multitool to determine that the door had short-circuited. He confirmed that for Granger and, six snipped, rearranged wires later, the door bolts fell. The massive clunk was enough of a victory cheer.

"Alright lads. You lead the way. Lay topside. Six above." Allen said as he and Searle, with a bit of oomph, forced the heavy doors open. Within was a narrow accessway with a directly vertical ladder inside. There was a hole below it and underneath it, for access between decks. The leading fireteam went first up the ladders, with Allen, Searle, Granger, McKeal and the rest of the Marines in tow. A few of the hatches were sealed, but they were plain and simple manual ones, easy to open.

Once six decks above, the Marines found themselves in an identical accessway to the one they'd started in. Luckily, this one's door wasn't properly sealed. There were a couple of small yet heavy-looking crates stopping the door from closing. After clearing the forward and surrounding areas with raised rifles, the fireteam on point heaved away the crates and forced the door all the way open.

"You have reached your destination." Searle half-chuckled, half-muttered, looking around at the large room, filled with servers and terminals.

"This is it, Staff. Ops Centre. Should we get to work?"

[dryskim]

Lance Corporal Richard 'Double Dick' Bellend 

7th Marine Regiment, 1st Battalion 

Tornado 2-4 Alpha 

Kill 'em, 'rah?

Sometimes, sitting in a field freezing his nuts off in the cold, a man would make a stunning revelation about life, death, war, love, or human nature. Lance Corporal Bellend wasn't one of those men. This wasn't the Ardennes, and he wasn't huddled in some foxhole dreaming about returning home to redacted his best girl. He didn't have a full-beard, a M1 Garand, and a letter that was threatening to fall to pieces from being folded again-and-again.


He didn't have a Screaming Eagle on his shoulder, but he did have redacted scribbled on his kevlar. 


He didn't have a 'best girl' back home, because he was a 26th century man. Their was no time for putting up white picket fences and buying a little two-story with room for a treehouse in the back, because that meant settling down. And settling down meant deciding on one woman he wanted to redacted for the rest of his natural life, and he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with those sort of obligations. 


While he wasn't too terribly scared of dying, it wasn't exactly one of those things you wanted to saddle on somebody else. The Lance Corporal grinned, shoving another chunk of smashed chocolate chip cookie into his mouth, a stream of crumbs trailing down his chin and the front of his flak. Here he was, huddled in against the earth and rocks like, nibbling on plundered cookies watching for hostile aliens who wanted to steal NAV data, and the only thing running through his mind was how hilarious it'd be if his significant other would have to deal with his funeral arrangements.

She'd probably bury him in his blues if their was enough left over for an open casket. Fuck, he knew if they got Stone up there to give his eulogy, he'd say with a straight face, "He was a fucking redacted. Plain and simple, Bellend was the gayest fucking Marine I ever had the displeasure of serving with. He liked redacted in his ass, redacted, loved the feeling of redacted. He was a goddamn cigar," he'd get a little misty-eyed, "But he was our cigar. I'm gonna miss the motherfucker."

He'd step off the pulpit and everybody would go real quiet, because civvies could never possibly comprehend the stream of profanity and homophobia that embodied the spirit of the Marine Corps. You couldn't truly trust a man with your life until he called you out on your sexuality, insulted your race, and challenged you to a redacted measuring contest.

And he wouldn't trade it for anything else in the universe. 

[Astro]

████ Hours, December ██, 2547 (Military Calendar) /
Sanctuary, Hope

LCpl Jock McPherson
7th Marine Regiment, 1st Battalion
Tornado 2-4, Fireteam Alpha


To Jock's right, just past Stone, was Bellend. He was quieter than usual, not joining in with the typical banter. At a closer look it was pretty clear that the Assaultman was busy. Back in the staffroom at the school about thirty minutes ago, the sneaky bastard had taken the liberty of raiding for snacks. After Bellend had turned out untouched sodas and preservative-loaded cookies that still looked fresh, Jock could have sworn his fellow Lance Corporal had left a couple of his MA5 magazines behind to make room for extra food.

Now, instead of backing Jock up with some homophobic slur mixed with a harsh curse-word and a reference to American superiority, Dick was challenging himself to see how many cookies could block a man's airways. Judging by the torrent of crumbs flowing from his massive mug, Jock presumed Bellend was well on his way to achieving his mission of confectionery choking.

"Fatarse," mentioned Jock, speaking over Stone's back, who was hunched over the M247. "Fuck ya dain'? Gies a bit, Dick."

Bellend had enough cookies to end world hunger (26th Century JK), yet something told Jock that it wasn't sharing time. What a bellend.

[JJM8C4J]

Lance Corporal James Stone
1/7 Marines
Tornado 2-4 Alpha

"That's what I'm saying, why didn't we just drop a MAC from orbit and take care of it the Patton way? At least we wouldn't be dick deep in dirt surrounded by Covvie suck-ops." James said to Corporal Warren, continuing a conversation that had died down as Jock proceeded to make himself look like a retarded circus monkey bashing his head against the smartass that was the Indian Marine from Bravo - the machine gunner never made an effort to remember his incomprehensible name.

The Lance Corporal lifted his cheek from the M247's stock, turning onto his side so he could pump a fist into an open hand; imitating the impact of a MAC round with the freighter, sound effects included. "Just... bam! Take care of that NAV problem like real men."

"It wouldn't have ensured that the NAV data was gone, Stone; I already said that. The only way to confirm that the data isn't salvageable is to do it manually."

Stone shifted back onto his chest, pulling his GPMG back into his shoulder once more as he scanned the perimeter from between his perch between a pair of rocks. "Yeah, well, it would've ensured there were no Spec-Ops sitting around..."

It was just then that Jock said something to Bellend. Stone craned his head to look at the assistant machine gunner, his lips slightly ajar as he tried to make sense of the man's thick Scottish accent. He couldn't even tell if he was insulting the assaultman or not.

"Dude, do you speak another language or something?"

[dryskim]

Lance Corporal Richard 'Double Dick' Bellend  

7th Marine Regiment, 1st Battalion  

Tornado 2-4 Alpha  

Eating cookies, 'cause don't give a fuuuuuck~!

The Double-Dick paused with his chunk of chocolate goodness halfway to his gob, a blank expression on his face as he tried to decipher what the fuck had just been said. Judging from Stone's interjection, he was facing the same problem. 


Bellend, unsure if Jock was demanding he share or telling him to quit being a fatty, stuffed the remainder of the cookie down his throat at once. He even took the moment to upturn the foil packaging and pour the crumbs into his waiting mouth - which only resulted in more material cascading down the front of his vest. He crumpled the wrapper in his fist and stuffed it into his utilities' oversized thigh pocket, swallowed the three-quarters of a cookie like a three-dollar hooker, and flashed Jock a shit-eating grin shrug combination. 

[RiddL]

Staff Sergeant Kai (Wolf) Blacklock
153rd ODSTs
Just another day at work

Kai heard Nyro yell out "Clear and gave a grunt as he shifted the mans weight on his shoulders.

He moved up and held his sidearm with a practiced hand, like this was just another day at work.

"Nyro, I can pick up the nearest IFF tags that are not from the Lieutenant's platoon, if we head to them, we can get out of here quick smart and I can relay some first hand intel to whoever is in charge out there" he said as they moved along.

First Lieutenant Alexei (Titan) Krevchekov
153rd ODST 4th Platoon
Bang bang bang

Alexei's fireteam was getting hammered by plasma fire when they heard a brake in the shooting, followed by an Elite muttering something in its own language, probably swearing or something like that.

Sergei turned and let loose on in the narrow corridor, followed by Spider, himself and Hellfire, they watched fired and watched as instead of bullets pinging everywhere, blue blood slowly started spilling and they heard heavy footsteps lumber further away, into where the rest of Fourth platoon were waiting for it. They fired at the Elite and heard the unmistakable sound of an Energy sword come to life. 

Titan heard this and yelled at his men, "Get back, it is going to charge" and spun around the corner and walked towards where the Elite was, firing his shotgun and slowly killing the bastard. He noticed that there was one last round in his shotgun.

The Elite ran back to where the smaller pocket of resistance was, being Omega Team, and charged towards Alexei with fury in its eyes. Alexei's breathing quickened and he pulled up his gun and fired the final round, which spread out and ripped the Elites black armour inwards and ruptured all of its organs, killing it.

"Angel 4 Actual to to all Angel 4 Elements, Get off this ship and secure an exit, Fireteam Omega and I are going to keep moving and secure the Staff Sergeant and the HA and follow, move out and good hunting" he said as he turned and moved further into the ship.

[Cabel]

[Tranquilitas Beta: Moon Sanctuary: Alpha Company: Inside the downed Freighter: Captain Mark “Spade” Seamus Sorelson: Year 2547]

The trek through the decks had been a fairly slow and uneventful one considering that Mark nor the marines behind him had encountered any of the Covenant SpecOps yet, but that hadn’t been a sign for them to have relaxed. The freighter swarmed with a Covenant SpecOps team of unknown strength, and yet Mark had been tasked with securing the data from the freighter’s NavCom or in failing that destroying the relevant data preventing the Covenant from obtaining it. Carefully, the marines led by the aging Captain made their way towards the main computer core or rather the Operations Center.

The sounds of gunfire, ballistics and plasma fire reverberated along the bulkheads of the largely empty ship prompting Mark’s team to quicken their pace. A series of shotgun blasts followed by an angry guttural shout before silence reigned, but at least Mark had determined the source of the brief firefight had been a few corridors from their own location and with the ballistics report had meant other UNSC elements had survived. Following a series of subtle hand gestures, Mark with the rest of his team altered course while sweeping the adjacent corridors and compartments. Rounding a junction, Mark noticed the corridor had been littered with Elite and Grunt bodies complete with triangular methane tanks strapped to the Grunt’s body having been peppered by ballistics fire, and very slowly Mark’s team stepped around the bodies rather than over them in case the dead had held other surprises.

“Tornado Actual to Angel Four Actual, friendlies incoming,” Mark said softly, having switched over to the encrypted frequency Angel Four Actual had used before allowing the helmet-mic to retract back into the side of his helmet.

[RiddL]

First Lieutenant Alexei (Titan) Krevchenkov
153rd ODST
Welcome to the party.

Alexei turned around and removed his blood spattered helmet to reveal his face as the Captain arrived.

"Sir, you just missed the fun." He said with a smile, standing straight and wiping off the colourful blood on his helmet and visor. He placed it back on his head and slung his shotgun over his back, leaving his hands free.

"Need anything in particular sir? Or did you just come to say hi?" He asked cheerfully.

(OOC sorry for short post, phone takes forever)

[Cabel]

[Tranquilitas Beta: Moon Sanctuary: Alpha Company: Inside the downed Freighter: Captain Mark “Spade” Seamus Sorelson: Year 2547]

“Sir, you just missed the fun,” a massive ODST clad in the thicker ballistics armor standard-issued to those of the ODST corps.

“That was some nice handiwork. If that small mess back there were the only SpecOps the Covenant sent, you‘d better feel offended,” Mark replied noting in his HUD that the massive ODST‘s IFF code had tagged him as a First Lieutenant Alexei ‘Titan‘ Krevchenkov of the One-Fifty-Third ODST Company. He‘d only approached Alexei after his team had taken up defensive positions along the corridor, insuring covering arcs of fire. “We need to insure whatever NAVData’s been taken, or if it hasn’t to destroy it. I take it no one in your group’s the Cleaner we have to buy bleach for? My team and I were able to secure some party favors of our own. If we can’t see these cloaked party-crashers, we’ll freeze ’em out,”

[RiddL]

First Lieutenant Alexei (Titan) Krevchenkov
153rd ODST
Breaking and Exiting.

Alexei let his visor reveal his face and looked hard at the Captain and looked to where the Staff Sergeant and Nyro had left and sighed.

"We will take point sir, but can you please reassign three if your men to retrieve and get Staff Sergeant Blacklock and HA Nyro out of here please? They have wounded with them and we told them to run as soon as the shooting started." He asked quietly and cautiously.

He turned and looked to Spider, "Find the quickest route to the Operations Center and start moving, if there are any blockages of rubble and whatnot, set charges and clear it. Omega, lets move and get the good captain to his destination."

He stretched and felt his shoulders crack and the tension in those muscles lessened. He grabbed his shotgun of his back and waited for the Captain.

[MrKill]

Staff Sergeant McKeal
1/7, A Co. 1PLT
Crashed Freighter

"Do your thing, Sergeant." McKeal responded to the tech. They had arrived at the operations center moments ago but the tension he felt from not only himself but nearby Marines made it uncomfortable. Spec-Ops elites were around, and no doubt trying to access the doors that appeared to be sealed from the inside. Perhaps, just maybe, the door they had just came through wasn't improperly sealed but used as an escape route for the fleeing civilians who likely fled in panic.

McKeal crouched near the blast door that hid the corridor beyond. He was curious to what the Covenant would do if they ran into the door. Would they cut though it? Or would they simply blow it away with their plasma? McKeal had already decided that using the same route they used to arrive at the Operations Center would be the best way back to the hanger they initially entered the ship in. But, if his paranoia was right - that the Covenant were following them and the route they took - then they may have already been in trouble.

"Lights on, Marines. I want a full sweep of the immediate area. Call out any openings in the walls or anything out of the ordinary." McKeal ordered. Almost immediately the room was illuminated. McKeal squinted hard to see if he could catch the rippling active camouflage of an elite that betrayed his location, but detected nothing. He returned his attention to the lowered blast door. Other then minor stress caused from the crash, it looked normal. But McKeal knew more than anything looks were deceiving. He had to mentally shrug it off, but took the time he had to assign two Marines to watch each door.

"Any estimate on how long this will take? Higher wants you to download everything and erase it..." McKeal said, stopping himself. "I'll shut up, you know more than I do about this shit." He added, stopping and crouching by the open door they had just came through. He scanned the shaft with his weapon, the tactical light casting shadows from the ladder onto the wall. A brilliant idea struck him.

"Bennett, get over here." McKeal said, a moment later a Marine arrived. "Private, do you think you can rig a surprise if the Covenant were to come this way?"

"I can, Staff, but how are we going to get back down?"

"Trip wire, Marine. We'll just cut it and go."

"I don't have any wire, Staff."

McKeal nodded and sent Bennett away. McKeal stopped to think for a moment, then came up with an idea. He ejected his MA5's magazine and pulled away one of the 7.62x51mm rounds at the top. He lay prone, set the bullet on the third hand grip from the top of the ladder and balanced it out. He tested his theory and grabbed the grip with his right hand while holding the round with his left. The bullet vibrated, so he re-balanced it on the steel frame and pulled himself back into the room.

"If anyone hears clunking and ringing from this door, open up on it." McKeal ordered with a firm voice.

[rookie425]

HA Vivian Nyro
UNSC 7th Marines, 1st Battalion, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon

Nyro wasn't rushing by any definition. Emergent pace didn't mean she was bolting ahead of Kai to make sure everything was clear before he caught up with her. She was running from the threat. Between her and the Staff Sergeant, their pace was relatively laxed; a steady tactical walk that gave them the time to cut through the dark with precision, treating everything as a potential hiding spot for their hunters.

"Any snese of direction could help me right now," Nyro told Kai in a quiet whisper. "Do what you have to."

Ahead of her pace was an intersecting corridor of equal dimension. They were closing in on propulsion judging from the floor markings. The engine room was somewhere, and all around alcoves were visible lining the hallway, each containing maintenance accessways. Heat touched her face as Vivian advanced, slowly prickling at the exposed skin on her forearms. It was the same kind of feeling she got nearby a campfire. Then the ionized scent of burnt metal reached her nose, the source of which she guessed was an ambient blue glow coming from around the corner of the cross section.

Nyro raised a fist next to her head while keeping her MA5 up with one hand; the universal, silent [sit tight] order. She formed to the corner of the titanium bulkhead, peered the corner. A bright, magnesium light pierced her sight. Pulling her eyes away, she flipped her goggles upward and blinked sunspots away. Glancing back, she saw the sizzling flame was moving along the blast door from the center to the floor. It was not an engine fire like she thought. Wide-eyed, she reeled back and brought her weapon up, waving Kai to retreat.

"They're cutting through," she hissed, hugging the left wall until she fell into an alcove with some grace. Luckily, the maintenance door was still intact. She put her hand to its manual latch and gave it a tug, feeling it for some give. It groaned, but parted some of the way. "Help me with this."

[RiddL]

Staff Sergeant Kai (Wolf) Blacklock
153rd ODST
The Boogeymen

Kai used his free hand and pulled with his whole upper body, twisting for momentum and opening it with a painful groan. He pushed Nyro in before entering himself. He closed the door and heard the man on his shoulders wake up with a groan before muttering that he could walk. Kai put him down and put his arm over his shoulder for stability.

"Lead on Viv" Kai said, trying to find another route out of their predicament.

[rookie425]

HA Vivian Nyro
UNSC 7th Marines, 1st Battalion, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon
Tunnel Rats

Vivian looked over her shoulder to see the ODST Staff Sergeant was shoulder to shoulder with the crewman. As the two started to move in unison, Nyro watched Covenant pass outside of the maintenance hatch behind them. A heavy purple shell came into view, its mosquito like helmet sweeping left to right. Nyro hugged the wall, hoping that she would form to the wall in case the Spec Ops had optical enhancements. Then, to her horror, the creature vanished, leaving only a shimmer of its old self.

"Damn," she muttered.

By then, Kai ordered her to "lead on" to the best of her abilities. She was walking through the dark with a match to light her way compared to what the ODST had at his disposal. He had VISR--smart navigation, communication, image enhancements. She had night optic devices and basic two-way communications, and worse yet she was probably the only one in her unit that was currently in this part of the ship. She couldn't lock in on anyone's IFF transponder. The first name basis was starting to make her a little uncomfortable, not so much that he was acting familiar with her, but that most of the responsibility was being placed on her. She expected a SPECWAR operator to take charge. Maybe he wanted to see what she could do.

The Corpsman did her part though, delving deeper into the maze of maintenance tunnels, NVGs on and full spectrum. "I'm thinking we can probably bypass them."

"There's an emergency blow-out door for every section of maintenance," the crewman grumbled, taking breaths between steps. "Meant specifically for crash landings, but I hope we're on ground because--"

Just then, another hatch came into view on Nyro's right, leading right into another corridor. A set of heavy feet sounded on the other side. She pressed to the wall again, waving a hand back. The metallic sound of her shoulder hitting the wall made her grind her teeth. The creature on the other side made a low grumble and spoke in a guttural alien toungue.

"Aeu chu?" it said.

Nyro slowly dragged in a breath and held it in her chest. Aside from putting a hand to Kai's chest plate to brake his advance with the crewman, she didn't move a muscle. Outside, the Elite's heavy hooves shifted and shuffled against the plating. The glow of his energy sword illuminated the corridor on their side. Slowly, Vivian inaudibly let out her breath, then held it again. With her thumb, she traced the fire selector on her MA5C. She was almost expecting her gums to bleed with how hard she clenched her jaw.

The Elite made another grunt, sounding more like a hum this time, and the light peeled faded away from the hatch. "Kiya bulamde krrijj."

The footfalls trailed off, and Vivian drained her lungs quietly.

[Astro]

████ Hours, December ██, 2547 (Military Calendar) /
Sanctuary, Hope

LCpl Jock McPherson
7th Marine Regiment, 1st Battalion
Tornado 2-4, Fireteam Alpha

Bellend's exaggerated feasting brought a tear to Jock's eye; he felt betrayed by his fellow Lance Corporal. How dare he mock him through the medium of bragging? Unacceptable. They were trained to fight together. Jock had pulled his buddy right out of the shit back on Sargasso and this was how he rewarded him? What an ungrateful bastard. Next time, pulling him out of enemy fire would be right at the bottom of his priority. Unless he offered him a cookie there and then. Then he'd consider it.

"COOKIE. FUCKIN' SHARE A WEE BIT, DICK. ENGLISH!" Jock said slowly and loudly in response to Stone's confusion, though still through his thick Scottish accent. He muttered in defeat and shut up, turning back to the potential battlefield ahead of them. It was fairly open and they weren't likely to get dicked on by any sneaky aliens. That being said, if the Covenant had cloaked their entire army and were currently running at full pelt towards 2-4, they would have never known. A thought like that was enough to make a man shit himself. Jock checked.

Whilst he was doing so, he tugged on the crotch of his cammies; the damn things were riding up higher than a flying horse jockey. After much readjustment, the string of curses and complaints ceased.

"How the fuck did you even make Lance?" asked Warren from the opposite end of the Fireteam.

"By not becomin' an arms dealer o' Innie guns." McPherson grinned, clapping Stone on the shoulder.

Sergeant Craig Allen
7th MEB, 21st Communications Battalion
Attached to Seventh Marines, First Battalion, Alpha Company

"Gotcha."

The Operations Centre was a city of electronics, server towers rising high like the skyscrapers of Erbrook; the entire place was very similar to that of a UNSC vessel. In fact, this room was near identical to the auxiliary server room on the UNSC Rosebud. Allen had spent a lot of his days there, helping out the understaffed or completely dead Naval tech-teams. War had taken its toll on the Rosebud; a lot of non-combat crew members had lost their lives. Marines helping out with Naval stuff had become a pretty regular occurrence. A couple of years ago, the entire culinary team had been wiped out by a starboard-side hull breach and a bunch of Riflemen took over the ship's Mess Halls until Fleet Auxiliary sent more Naval Mess specialists over. Just like the Marine stand-ins had probably learnt a fair bit about preparing hot food, Craig had gotten to know a great deal about the way the UNSC wired their boats.

Aside from the nine towers arranged in a 3x3 grid, the room was fitted with terminals on three of the bulkheads. The fourth and furthest from the main door consisted of a large panel flush with the vertical face. On it was a compact ten-digit key-pad with a 'RESET' and 'CONFIRM' button. Allen approached it and tried the basics: '0000' and '1234'. Before locking himself out on what he presumed was a three-attempt failsafe, however, he stopped. He reached back into his bag and got took it out. After it booted back up out of standby, he again accessed the ship's schematics. Allen quickly located the Ops Centre on the map and tapped on the door he now faced.

"Barry, Ryan. Hey. Yeah, er. I want you on those towers," Allen ordered casually, focused more on the schematics in his hands. "Back everything up on externals and then completely wipe each server."

"Yeah, got it. You start over there Ryan."

"Toss me another network cable and a set of those transfer things then," Ryan pointed at Barry's bag. "Each get a couple going at once to save time."

"Sounds good." replied Corporal Searle, bundling said cables and throwing them underarm to the Private First Class. They got to work in silence as Allen continued working.

The schematics told him that the door was manufactured by Borovilia Tech, an old company based on Madrigal that was probably as dead as the planet. They were a small business and weren't too well-known among the rest of the colonies. Clearly someone had taken an interest in Borovilia's security doors for either their hardened and tough-as-nails design, or their inexpensive and cheap-as-hell price tag. Craig hoped it was the latter as Staff Sergeant McKeal pressed him for an ETA.

It was the latter. He pulled up a file named 'RESETS & OVERRIDES.' which he briefly scanned. It didn't take him long to follow the steps, pressing reset three times and entering six zeroes, leading to the ultimate goal of the door's hissing. Moments later, the panel slid to the left to reveal the NAVCOM. Allen smiled with premature victory. Now time to access it, back it up and wipe it.

Again from his bag, the Sergeant produced a bunch of cables. He rested them on the NAVCOM, beside the keyboard set into the metal. He also took out his mini datapad. Usually it was good for stuff like keypads, but it made a good transferral unit for purges. After connecting cables to the ports behind the panel underneath the NAVCOM, the back-up began. Furious typing got him through the basic encryption and a little help from his datapad helped him to get everything else.

Then, on his final check of the system, both manually and automatically via his datapad, a single directory popped up. Eh? This hadn't shown up the first time. Why now? Despite the sudden appearance, he attempted to send it down the pipe to the external hard-drive. 'DENIED. INVALID CLEARANCE.'. Wait, what? This was a civilian ship; why was he getting locked out from a civvie file? Legally, the UNSC had access to everything below military. Was this ship even UEG?

"Gonna take just a little longer than expected, Staff," Allen called, frowning as he went to his datapad to bring up the Regiment H&S roster to hail Logistics. "How's it coming with those servers, lads?"

"All backed up Sarge. Running wipes on the last three now Should take, er. er-"

"Two minutes tops." Ryan finished, nodding as he started packing away the stuff he had finished with.

Allen nodded and held up a finger, like he was on an important phone call. He was, in fact, patching through to a Lieutenant he knew that was boots on the ground. With connection established, he routed the link between them to his COMs.

"Lieutenant. This is Sergeant Allen, Twenty-First Comms Battalion."

"What can I do for you, Sergeant?" answered Lieutenant Mike Haines in a heartbeat. "You've tried turning it off and on again, right?"

"You tell that joke every time I hail you," Allen smiled, shaking his head. "I'm standing in front of a NAVCOM. One last file locking me out. Reckon y'get me in?"

"Ah. So it's you they put on Cole Protocol. Lucky sod. Give me a sec."

It didn't take long for Haines to come up with the clearance codes. He used a secondary copy of his own, on the grounds that following the Cole Protocol was top priority. In actuality, Allen knew that he probably had other stuff to do and couldn't be bothered bouncing a new set of codes from the Fleet. That would've taken hours. Craig wasn't too bothered with how he got in, as long as he did, thanking the Lieutenant before terminating the link. Entering them didn't take long: a backdoor in, access to an ONI clearance request screen. The characters were soon tapped on the keyboard and the file unlocked.

// DOSSIER: Protector, Tranquilitis Beta

Allen had a brief look through the file, for curiosity's sake. Technically it was illegal, but the UNSC military file hidden deep on a civvie ship intrigued him. He moved it from the NAVCOM onto the external drive and did a final wipe of the system. In an instant, everything navigation-related on the ship was erased. Judging by Searle and Granger with their bags on their backs, all the data on the ship was gone. Now the downed freighter truly was a husk, lifeless and devoid of any use. It had lost its humanity. Craig quickly gathered his stuff and headed back towards the rest of the Marines.

"Good to go." Corporal Searle nodded, handing the Sergeant a couple of drives. Allen slipped them into a secure container along with the drive he had used. With that, he tucked it into his rucksack and shrugged it back onto his back.

"Alright then. We're good to go, Staff," Craig said whilst returning to where he laid his rifle. He picked it up and held it in a low-ready position, muzzle directed towards the deck. "Purge complete. Files safe. Ship's as dead as it's gonna be without setting charges."

Now to get out without being ambushed by invisible fuckers.

-

(Didn't spellcheck or run through the post. Will do tomorrow. Spent yonks faffing around with this.)

[Guardian Cat of Yappa's]

Sergeant Maximilian Drake Fields

1/7, A Co, 1st PLT, 2nd Squad

Crashed Freighter

"Alright then. We're good to go, Staff," was the first thing that came into Fields mind as he watched the ladder. Thank god, he thought, now we can get out of here. "Second Squad is ready to move Staff, Waiting on your go." Fields yelled back to Mckeal. "Pvt Barrington, when we move, you're with me. Corporal," He yelled, scaring the boy that was to his left, "You're on point this time son."


(OOC: Sorry bout the short post, I couldn't really come up with everything so yeah)