User:Johnskee218/Luck of the Spartans

Setting: immediately after the Halo: Reach level New Alexandria

The five Spartans ran for the fallout bunker. The Covenant were glassing New Alexandria and everyone was either evacuating of finding cover. Carter, Jun, and Emile made it first and turned to watch their other two teammates arrive. They had just gotten idiotic orders from Colonel Holland, idiotic if you consider that they came as a Priority One hail over an open channel: they were being redeployed to ONI Sword Base to destroy the place. Kat and Noble Six were meters from the entrance. Kat was still annoyed over Holland and his ridiculous breach of protocol. The traceable, open channel had almost gotten them killed. Apparently the Covenant were still looking for something at the ruins of the ONI base. Kat grumbled as she ran, “When does he get off calling a demolition a Priority One-” There was a loud thwack of a Needle Rifle firing. Kat jerked and dropped like a rock. Noble Six caught her and pulled out the pistol strapped to her leg. Hovering above a hole in the ceiling was a Covenant Phantom dropship and a leering Elite was hanging out of it. Six fired the pistol and Carter, Jun, and Emile ducked from cover and opened fire with their MA37 assault rifles. The pistol’s slide locked back as its clip ran dry and the Phantom flew off. Six dragged Kat’s body inside, with Carter and Jun, as well as one of the half dozen civilians and ONI workers, urging him to hurry. The door started to close and they could analyze Kat’s injury. There was a hole in the back of her helmet and another hole in the faceplate. A headshot; not good. Emile pointed at the group of civilians and ONI workers that hadn't been scared off by the gunfire. “Someone go get a medic!” he shouted. When they hesitated he waved his Assault Rifle in their direction. “NOW!” they scurried off. “Kat.” Carter said quietly, kneeling by her side and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Come on. Kat.” there was no response, no movement from her at all except for the slow trickle of blood from both holes in her helmet. “No.” Carter straightened up. “No, no, NO! SON OF A BITCH!” He threw his MA37 assault rifle across the room. It hit the wall, leaving a dent and bending the barrel 90 degrees. This simply couldn’t be happening. He and Kat had spent years with each other; they had known each other almost since Noble Team had been started. They had been the sole survivors on the team several times; surviving whatever suicide missions and enemy forces that UNSC High Command and the Covenant could throw at them. She just couldn’t be dead. Carter looked back at the hole in Kat’s helmet, and tried not to accept the truth. Nobody had ever seen Carter loose his cool like this. He turned in a circle, looking for something to vent upon. “DAMMIT! NO! YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! COVENANT MOTHERFU—” Jun tried to put a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Calm down, Boss.” “Shut up!” Carter roared, coming narrowly close to taking a swing at his sniper. Jun backed off, hands raised in the universal “I surrender” gesture. “Sorry, Boss, I just—” Carter regained his composure for a moment. “Sorry, Jun. I, I just need a minute alone.” He stalked off, tearing his helmet off and throwing it away and kicking his rifle as he walked past. This time the gun bent almost in half and sailed into a corner. Noble Six and an ONI worker appeared with a medic in tow. They bundled Kat onto a stretcher and everyone ran off to the medical bay. Nobody really believed that Kat was alive, but they had to do something. As soon as they arrived, the medic ran off to get supplies as Jun eased Kat’s helmet off. The needle had hit her in the back of the helmet and had exited through her faceplate. It had carved through the padding in the helmet and had also carved a deep crevasse in her skull. Blood gushed from the helmet as Jun pulled it off and dropped it to the floor. “That blood looks kind of fresh.” Six said, watching the flow of blood, which wasn’t stopping. Six pressed two fingers to Kat’s neck and withdrew a second later. “Son of a... I think there’s a pulse there.” “GET THAT MEDIC BACK HERE!” Emile shouted, and three medics scurried over before he was even done speaking and immediately got to work. “Is there anything we can do?” Jun asked. “No, sir.” The medic who appeared to be in charge said. He probably outranked Jun, but Spartans were almost always looked to for command, rank of not. “I’ll keep you guys posted.” “Thank you, sir.” Jun said, then turned to the other Nobles. “Come on boys; let’s let the medics do their thing.” “Hang in there, Kat.” Emile said, pulling off his helmet as he left the room. “So.” Jun said after the doors closed. “we going to tell the boss or not?” “No way.” Emile said decisively. “Not until we know Kat's gonna make it.” “Agreed.” Six said, then visibly hesitated, like he was going to say more but stopped himself. “What?” Jun asked. “Well, it's just that I'm sorry. You guys probably think this is my fault somehow.” Emile clapped Six on the back. “Don't blame yourself. We sure don't. You haven't been with us that long.” Jun helped explain. “You haven't been on the team long enough for us to gripe at you. The worst that happens is we get a little pissed off. Besides, we got to keep it professional.” He smiled, though it was obvious him and Emile were feeling Kat's loss as well. Carter returned shortly after the rest of Nobles had found a place to sit and wait. His helmet under his arm and he looked much better. He had spent the last three minutes swearing; cussing out the Covenant, UNSC air support for not taking out that Phantom, Kat for not having her shields turned on, the makers of her helmet for not making it headshot-worthy, Colonel Holland for giving them the orders, and on and on. The rant had calmed him down and by the time he got back to his team, his original cool had returned. “Sorry I blew up, guys.” He tried to apologize, but Emile cut him off. “No apology necessary, Commander. We understand completely.” the four remaining Spartans found an out-of-the-way spot to camp out in. It was highly doubtful that any furniture could stand up to half a ton of MJOLNIR armor, so everyone sat on the floor. The Covenant was glassing the city and there wasn’t a darn thing the Spartans could do about it. After about five hours, the adrenaline of the glassing, the combat and the losses of Kat and Jorge began to wear off and the boredom set in. there were only so many guns to clean, so many armor pieces to service, so many push-up contests they could have (Emile won) before the hours began to drag by slower and slower. Twelve hours into the glassing.

Jun and Six had scoured the bunker looking for any weapons or things that needed servicing. Weapons in varying staged of disassembly spread out in front of Jun and Carter. Emile was throwing his Kukri and several UNSC combat knives at a target made from cardboard boxes on the other side of the room. Noble Six was loading bullets into magazines and each time he topped one off, he would add it to a growing pyramid of ammunition. Six was sitting within arm’s reach of Emile’s target and every few minutes, the Spartan would pull them out and throw them back across the room at a similar target next to Emile. Everyone looked up when the doctor came in. “I have good news.” The doctor said. He was nervous, but would have been more scared if the news was bad. Bad news and four heavily armed Spartans seemed like a recipe for disaster. The doctor continued. “Spartan B-320 will likely live. We treated her wounds as best we could and her condition is stable.” Carter stood up. “What?! Kat's alive? Since when?” “We were going to tell you as soon as we found out she would make it.” Jun said. “I guess we just did.” you guys have got some explaining to do. Carter growled, but it was clear that he was thrilled to hear Kat was alive. “Is she awake? Can we see her?” The doctor shifted uncomfortably. “Catherine is stable but was in a coma. She is now in cryo-stasis until we can move her to proper medical facilities. She might have some brain damage, so waking her up might be bad. She was very lucky; another millimeter of two down and she would have been killed instantly.” Jun chuckled mirthlessly. “Luck of the Spartans, I guess.” Emile flashed the doctor a thumbs-up. “You’re the man, doc, good job.” “Thank you.” The doctor smiled, obvious relieved to have gotten approval from the most intimidating Spartan in the room.