ARES:Gods of War

Waking Noble

Delving deeper into the strange alien place, the group found more and more damage. The place looked like it'd been torn to shreds by something moving through it, but it wasn't. If one spent any amount of time looking at the damage, they'd probably see it came from the crash. Kinetic damage that bent the walls, damaged the wires and everything meant that this damn thing must've fallen from orbit.

They took a left turn, Neon in the lead with her shotgun and the flashlight on it turned on. Rapi followed next, then Alyosha in the middle, Stella mid-rear and Anis pulling rearmost security with her launcher. Normally, you wouldn't want to fire a rocket propelled grenade inside a confined space, but the girl figured that, with the amount of damage this place had already suffered, the shockwave might not hit so hard.

With their flashlights, they scanned the surrounding walls and the broken doors, some of which still opened and partially shut through the electricity left over in the place's coils and capacitors. There was a flickering holographic display showing scarlet signs of some kind, presumably warnings in an alien language, as they passed by it. Anis murmured, "Man, I hate places like this... Dark, scary and..." She yelped loudly and felt a chill shoot up her spine that almost caused her to lock up when an electrical wire fell from the roof behind her.

The others looked back at her with concern, Stella even flashing her light in her face. The medical girl chuckled, while the grenadier pouted. The group continued walking through the desolate corridors, weapons in hand as they scanned the place, before an EM Pulse struck them, causing Stella to drop to one knee as her body partially locked up. She shook her head, murmured, "Beyond the door..." then sighed and stood up. Tilting her head forward, she approached the door...

Only to find it to be locked by the loss of power. Anis hit the door with her balled fist once, the strike reverberating across the walls, bouncing around and getting more distant. Sighing, the girl loaded grenades, to which Rapi shook her head and said, "There has to be a way around. No need to waste ammo on it..." before pausing as her eyes felt like they'd malfunctioned. She raised her rifle, flashlight on and pointing into the darkness of the corridor behind them.

She sighed and lowered it, murmuring, "There was a ripple..." before looking back at the Commander. Each member of the team felt a pit form in their stomach again, as if they weren't supposed to be here. The hull of the ship groaned back in a belated response to Anis's hit, to which the girls sighed and shook their heads. It might've been something or other falling from the roof.

Hefting his MA5 and keeping his light pointed forward, Alyosha said, "C'mon. There might be a way around through the next corridor..." only to pause as Neon took point again. Right, the whole 'protect the commander' directive was still in effect, much to his chagrin. He listened in on the radio as it continued to flash and flare and scream with static, flicked the off button, then whispered to himself, "Of course..."

A creak to his left caused him to immediately lift up his rifle. He scanned the walls, to see the sight of concealed purple and fluorescent blue blood. There were no corpses, however. Was it the Flood again? God, he hoped not. They weren't physically prepared to take on the Flood, not without protocols UPSILON and CORRUPTER, not without a whole SPARTAN strike team and nukes.

Though, no. If it had been the Flood, there would be growths all over the place and they would probably have already encountered a swarm or horde. As he scanned the ceiling, too, noting that it had open hatches, he wondered just what the hell it was they were facing. Some faint memory scratched at the back of his head, like Chief and the Blues had told them about this place. Hell, like the Sergeant-Major had told them.

In fact, they had told them of a bunch of stuff, including boarding Covenant ships. He blinked, froze, then whispered, "Oh, crap..." before turning to the girls and telling them, "I think this is a chunk of a Covvie ship..."