115

Chapter 5

The vehicle shook violently as the engines started, lights in the hangar bay of the Infinity came on to direct the vehicles where to go. S115 in the cockpit of the Pelican hit the VTOL commands and the ship lifted from the ground, he pulled up the landing gear as Captain Laskey came on the comms as he himself as a hologram appeared in the passenger bay.

Teams Osiris and Blue sat in their own seats going over their weapons and armor, making sure that everything was in order before Laskey appeared. "Alright spartans, your mission on paper is a lot easier than it's going to be I'm sure."

They all nodded as S115 pushed the throttle forwards, the ship slowly began to fly towards the airlock. "Your mission is to defeat and stop Cortana from what we believe is a plan to activate a Halo Ring. Chief?"

John stood up and nodded, "She said that she wanted to help humanity, she wants the galaxy to be a better place...but her way of doing it is...wrong. She wants to rule, and control and manipulate." Everyone looked to the Master Chief as his speech slowly turned to a rant, driven by emotions and feelings. "She wasn't like this...she isn't, so I know that it isn't her."

"Chief..." Laskey said slowly.

"No. It isn't Cortana, we've fought together for too long, I know how she works, I know how she thinks. She hates it when I'm reckless, someone like that wouldn't want to police a galaxy."

Locke looked to him, "With all do respect Chief, this is what got us in this problem in the first place."

"Oh boy." Buck spoke, Chief turned to Locke and tilted his head.

"Excuse me?"

Locke stood and looked at him, both of them standing on either side of Laskey's hologram. The Captain was looking back and forth between them as they had a mental standoff. "According to reports, you were ordered by Laskey to turn in Cortana and deactivate her years ago. You decided to keep her and went against orders, just like you did months ago when she spoke out to you."

"What does that matter Jameson? We completed our mission, we took down the Didact and saved Earth. The planet we were on not 24 hours ago!" He said forcefully, everyone in the bay could feel the tension and were getting nervous.

"Stand down you two, there will be none of this. You are going to be teammates, and you are going to do what is needed. So you can take this arguing and fighting horse shit and throw it away, because I'm tired of you super soldiers acting like you never grew up!" Laskey yelled, everyone turned to him before Chief and Locke sat down and looked at him. "That's better. We've sent you coordinates to signatures that match the signals of the Guardians, that'll be our best bet to find her."

OoO

The city was bustling and peaceful, the sun was shining brightly and the weather was perfectly warm. The city was surrounded by Prometheans, armed and dangerous, but the civilians ignored them. They went along with their day, acting as if they weren't there. 

"This is...so creepy."

"Got that right, Buck." Tanaka spoke as she deactivated her visor zoom, she looked to Locke and he shook his head. 

"This doesn't make sense," He started as he looked up to the Guardian that was hovering over the city. "They said that a Guardian is powerful enough to police an entire Galaxy, and we've seen how their EMP effect can black out an entire fleet and planet. But these people are just going along with their day like nothing's wrong."

The radio connected and a voice came over, "Osiris, this is Blue team, we are in position. Activate diversion."

"Got it, Osiris, the light is green. Guns free!" Locke shouted as they began to fire at the Prometheans, they jumped and began to shoot back. 

Buck shot his magnum at a powerline and as the line snapped it fell down and killed a group of enemies, "Danger close!" Vale shouted as she jumped down the hill they were perched on and began to fire her SMG.

Tanaka followed after her followed by the other two, Buck jumped over the two of them and killed a Soldier with his shotgun. As it disintegrated a Knight sliced through the air, Locke grabbed it's arm and snapped it off before stabbing it into its chest.

Vale threw a grenade at another group of Soldiers, she turned her head and saw that all of the civilians had disappeared. "Civies are clear, we can use all ordinance, watch for buildings." She spoke to her team, they nodded in acknowledgement and began to fire at more enemies.

"We have Phaetons!" Locke called as three of the aerial vehicles came into existence in mid air, they all ran into an alleyway to dodge the rockets and hard light fire. "We need air support!" Locke called into his headset.

"Copy." S115 spoke before a sound of engines roaring could be heard. S115 pushed the throttle forwards and sped towards the city from his cover in the clouds, he moved his finger over the fire button and pressed it down. Bullets sprayed out of the Pelican and into one of the Phaetons, the other two boosted out of the way and higher into the air.

They began to fire at the Pelican, S115 saw that Osiris moved out of the alleyway and towards the meet up point. He quickly took down the remaining two aerial vehicles and followed behind the team, he landed in the middle of a cross section and opened the backdoor. He waited until the door was manually closed and he heard Jameson give him a heads up before shooting back into the sky.