Marathon/RvB, Supercollider Swing 3
About time we got some HOT ACTION in here, amirite?
This chapter contains: Hot brawling action, hot but probably unlikely by the laws of physics space battle action, Mark is kind of weird news at 11.
Previous chapter.
3. Testing, Testing
After she finished her morning workout, Carolina went up to the bridge and walked in on the Counselor manning a comm board and the Director saying, "That's impossible." The reddish-yellow curve of Epsilon Ariadne shone in one corner of the wide windows, but most of the view was taken up by the looming bulk of the alien ship, now floating in tandem with the Mother of Invention; several tugs were still linked to its hull. The pilots on the lower bridge carefully ignored the conversation above to concentrate on their own consoles.
The comm board crackled. "Sir, I'm just telling you what the alien people told me," Four Seven Niner said. "At least three, maybe four or five Covenant cruisers hanging outside our sensor range, waiting for I don't know what."
"If they are correct - and that's a mighty big if - what do they expect us to do about it?" the Director said. "Are their engines fully repaired? Can their ship handle slipstream travel?"
"I'm not an engineer, sir, I really couldn't say. You'd have to ask them."
"I'm asking you, Four Seven Niner."
"Then I'd say they're dead in the water," Niner said. "Way too big for us to tow through slipspace even if the hull would stand up to it with that big breach, and we have no idea how their engines actually work when they're functional. Best we can do is try to haul them into the shadow of another planet in this system and hope the Covenant are too stupid and lazy to find us."
"I see," said the Director; Carolina found a spot along the wall that was clear of instruments and leaned against it with her helmet under her arm, listening. "Well, without facts, we cannot act, and -"
Another voice cut in. "You can trust the S'pht on this one," Durandal said, "I redesigned the instruments myself. Before you waste time with stupid questions, since we're in range I have temporarily transferred myself back to Rozinante to monitor the repairs. They're progressing at a satisfactory rate, but your pilot is correct; my ship isn't ready to go anywhere just yet."
"Then it would seem we have a bit of a situation on our hands." The Director took a step as if to start pacing, then stopped himself.
"An excellent situation for an ambush, that is," Durandal said. "I'm assuming you know how those work."
"Go on."
"Or perhaps I was too generous in estimating your intelligence. Recall your tugs, hide your ship while I remain here, and when the Covenant ships arrive within range, we destroy them. My shields and weapons systems are already approximately seventy-eight percent functional - a number I can improve by diverting resources from the engines for a short time - and as an optimist, I'd like to think that you realize your own ship is well-armed."
"Even in an ambush situation, two ships against five - possibly more - is not the best of odds, particularly with one ship damaged," said the Director.
"Of all times for my reputation not to precede me..." Durandal's irritation was remarkably clear. "I realize that my earlier account of my accomplishments was somewhat compressed, so let me take this opportunity to enlighten you: I defeated an entire Pfhor battle group led by their most accomplished living admiral with a single scoutship a third the size of Rozinante. I'm sure the Covenant are quite fearsome and technologically advanced and whatever, since they appear to have spent most of this war soundly defeating you, but they haven't faced me yet."
Carolina saw one corner of the Director's mouth twitch upward, a tell that Durandal couldn't pick up on over the comm channels. It was all a test, then: the Director looking for cracks and angles to use. "Then we would be grateful for your assistance," he said. "FILSS, find us a hiding spot. And what will you do if there are more ships than you can handle?"
"What we don't destroy utterly will be disabled, engines and communications first," Durandal said. "Your agents can clean up the survivors at their leisure."
"And what about your - companion?" the Director said, leaning slightly closer to the comm board.
"What about him? He spent three days fighting these Covenant; he can take a break for once."
"With respect," the Counselor said, "we have gone to no small effort to retrieve your ship and granted you the use of some very expensive equipment. Not to mention -"
"Of course. The price of the free lunch." Carolina's shoulders tensed slightly, but Durandal didn't sound annoyed - at least, not more annoyed than he usually seemed to be. "Fine, in addition to my help with the ambush, I'll graciously loan you his services in destroying alien pests, in return for the continued use of your precious armor while we're here and those engine repairs that Agent Carolina mentioned. Considering his skills, that's more than a fair deal."
"Is it?" the Director said. "You talk a big game, Durandal, but in this war it's actions and results that matter. Before we commit to anything, I'd like to test Mr. Hammer's so-called skills myself."
Carolina stepped away from the wall and said, keeping her voice low in the faint hope it wouldn't transmit, "If I may remind you, sir, that crash site was a battlefield when we arrived, and Mark Hammer was the only one standing. He didn't have any trouble adapting to Washington's armor on the way to the extraction point -" And that, while far from the only thing that unnerved her about Hammer, was the one most worth mentioning. Normal people couldn't just throw on the latest Mjolnir armor model and start walking like they'd been born in it, and that ought to go double for people supposedly from another universe. "- so I'm not sure testing him is necessary."
"Objection noted and dismissed, Agent Carolina. I want to see Mr. Hammer fight with my own eyes - assuming you have no trouble with the idea, Durandal?"
"Trouble? Oh no. I never get tired of watching him work," Durandal said. "It'll be fun to see him get a real work-out for a change. Give me a few minutes to prepare Rozinante and I'll be right over to enjoy the show."
"Very good." The Director straightened up. "Four Seven Niner, have you been listening?"
"Heard every word, sir, we'll detach and head home right now," Niner said. "See you soon."
The Director turned away from the comm board to face Carolina. "Have the other agents assemble at the training room," he said, "and go fetch Hammer. Unless you have some other objection to raise, Agent Carolina?"
"No, sir," she said reluctantly.
She called York on her way down to the deck with the empty living quarters and told him to get the Dakotas, and Wyoming and Florida if he could find them. She didn't know exactly what the Director planned to put their guest through, but she knew him well enough to make a few educated guesses. Maine, CT, and Washington she would find herself; they tended to train together despite their different specialties.
Washington turned out to be waiting in the hall beside the door to Hammer's room instead. Carolina raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing here, Wash?"
"That AI messed with all my files," Washington said, his shoulders hunching slightly. "I want him to fix it! They didn't answer when I knocked, though, so I've been waiting for - oh, God, it's been an hour already..."
"Just go find Maine and CT and head for the training floor," she said. "Director's decided to give our guest a work-out, see what he can do."
"Uh - you did mention all the dead aliens in your report, right?"
"Of course. That wasn't enough, apparently." She waited for Washington to stalk off down the hallway, then knocked on the doorframe and heard Hammer's sleep-roughened voice call out something about another minute.
Carolina stepped back, her free hand on one hip, and not quite a minute later, the door slid open. Hammer stood on the other side, still in sweats and squinting at her; she glanced at the ragged scars circling his throat before looking up to meet his eyes. Even out of armor he was huge. "Yeah?" Hammer said. "Aliens invading or what?"
"Or what," Carolina said, "at least for now. Get the armor on - the new suit, not your old armor; the Director wants to see you in action."
Hammer rubbed at his right eye with one hand, and Carolina saw more scars on his arm - thin, surgical lines blurred by patchy fusion burns. "All right," he said. "Breakfast first, though."
"You don't sound too surprised." Or even irritated. She might as well have woken him up to tell him that water was wet for all the change in his expression.
"I'm hungry. And I've had worse job interviews."
Durandal's voice rose from the pile of armor against one wall. "Are you thinking about the decompressed shuttle bay or the game in quarantine storage?"
"Shit, I always forget about the shuttle thing. Sorry, Skullface, you guys wouldn't even make the top five."
"What did you call me?" Carolina said.
"Nothing," Hammer said, blinking. "I just said sorry, you aren't the worst job interview by a long shot. Come to think of it, not sure I caught your name in the first place."
"You can call me Carolina." She eyed him, but if he was trying to pull some kind of prank on her - Skullface? Where would he come up with a nickname like that? - she couldn't find a trace of it in his face. He just nodded once, then turned around and started pulling on armor while Durandal fussed at him to be careful.
After he had suited up, she took him to the mess and watched as he devoured an inhuman amount of synthetic bacon, smoked fish, oatmeal with sliced bananas and raisins, and even the galley's sorry excuse for scrambled eggs. When they made it to the training room at last, the rest of Carolina's team were already there, killing time. Florida and Wyoming were taking potshots with sniper rifles at some of FILSS's moving targets while North and York were chatting and South ran through a kickboxing program; Maine leaned against one wall, CT was fiddling with one of her knives, and Washington was talking and gesturing to both of them. No sign of the Director until she looked up to the observation room and saw his shadow against the barrier.
York broke off his conversation when he saw her enter with Hammer and started towards her, but the Director's voice rang out over the intercom first. "Glad you could finally join us, Agent Carolina, Mr. Hammer," he said, and Carolina instinctively stood a little straighter at the tone in his voice. "Everyone but Maine and Hammer, clear the floor."
"What? They can't put him against Maine!" Washington said. "He'll kill him!"
South knocked out the last target, and the program terminated as she said, "This is crap. What do they need all of us here for if it's just going to be those two squaring off? If I wanted to watch two dicks going at it -"
"South, cut it out," North said.
"You'll all get your chance in time," said the Director. "Now, clear the floor."
Carolina looked over at Hammer as she turned to leave the room, but he was already settling his helmet over his head and she couldn't get a read on his expression before her view was cut off. Maine waited until everyone else had squeezed into the observation room before he pushed off from the wall and strode into the center of the training room floor. Hammer was just standing there, waiting; despite the armor boosting his height, he still had to look up a little to meet the golden gaze of Maine's visor. "Damn," he said, loud enough to carry upwards, "you got some Drinniol in you or what?"
Maine shrugged.
"No skin off my nose either way," Hammer said. "Just wondering." He cracked his knuckles. "So, how are we doing this?"
From a bubble of clear space no one had dared to crowd into, the Director said, "We'll begin with unarmed combat. Durandal, I would appreciate it if you didn't participate in this particular test."
"Fine, take half the fun out of it, why don't you?" A ball of green light appeared beside the intercom. "Then you'll have to forgive me if I borrow access to the cameras and holographic projectors up here. Not that your internal sensors are all that impressive."
The Director ignored him. "Otherwise, gentlemen - don't hold back. FILSS, if you'd do the honors..."
"Certainly, sir," FILSS said, and a blank scoreboard popped up on one screen. "Round one, hand-to-hand, begin."
Carolina leaned against the barrier for a better look, rubbing shoulders with York and Washington. Down on the floor, Maine had shifted to a basic resting stance, but Hammer hadn't moved. "I'm a little out of practice with hand-to-hand," he said. "How about you go first?"
"Oh God. He's gonna get glassed," Washington said.
Maine tilted his helmet slightly, then took a swing at Hammer's head.
Hammer caught it with one hand.
Maine threw another punch with his free hand, and Hammer caught that one, too. His heels dug into the floor, but didn't budge an inch. Maine stared down at him, tried to twist his hands out of Hammer's grip and failed, and then he slammed his left foot into Hammer's side and sent Hammer flying across the room.
"Talk about your wet firecrackers," South said. "Nice try, but no - holy shit!"
Hammer had landed in a crouch, reversed, and tackled Maine - not even tackled, but rammed helmet-first like a missile right into Maine's gut so hard they both hit the floor, and Maine's helmet clanged off steel. Hammer straddled his chest and grabbed him by the shoulders, but Maine swept his legs out from under him and rolled away. They sprang back to their feet at the same instant, and Hammer sidestepped Maine's punch to slug him in the face.
Carolina breathed out, ignoring Wash, South, and North's sudden burst of exchanging bets on the winner. She hadn't expected Hammer to go down that easy, but after Maine had turned the first two Freelancers he'd fought into shattered wrecks when told not to hold back, a little concern was natural from everyone who'd seen that match go down.
Maine got a jab in at Hammer's stomach and Hammer folded over, but caught Maine's arm and yanked him down to crack the back of his helmet against Maine's and sent them both staggering back. A moment later Hammer had moved in and tried to knee Maine, but Maine blocked it, grabbed him, and flipped him over one shoulder.
"Twenty bucks says it's a tie," York said, too quietly to catch South's ear.
Hammer twisted, landed on Maine's back, and got him in a chokehold, hanging on tighter than a Venusian leech while Maine scrambled for a grip to tear him off.
"You think so?" Carolina didn't take bets, especially not York's, but from what she was seeing she thought he might be right on this one.
"Have you seen his scars? If he's not a Spartan from another universe, he's gotten the same upgrades or something close to them - he might not know what to do with them, but he's sure as hell got them."
Carolina nodded slightly. Below them, Maine caught Hammer by the arms, broke the chokehold, and flipped him again and slammed him to the floor; the deck dented with the force of it. Hammer didn't stay down. He twisted around and grabbed Maine's chestplate as Maine leaned forward to pin him, planted a foot against his waist, then hurled Maine back over his head. The momentum let him roll up and onto his feet again.
The ball of green light popped up between York and Carolina. "Not his most impressive work, I'll admit," Durandal said. "I don't usually have him fight just for show. You should see him with a shotgun - it's a thing of beauty."
"Hmm." Carolina watched Maine's next punch slide off Hammer's helmet and Hammer duck to get a strike in under Maine's ribs. He was faster than he looked, a lot like Maine, and whether he'd received Spartan upgrades or not, he had a similar strength and durability. What he didn't seem to have was any kind of style or finesse; he punched and grappled gracelessly like a basic bar brawler. Good enough against Maine, who fought the same way, but if it were her down on that floor...
She didn't say that to Durandal. Better to show him, when her turn came around.
Maine and Hammer were no longer bothering to dodge or block each other; they kept trading punches that rang through the room and refusing to fall down. "How is that guy still standing?" Washington said, and before he'd even finished speaking Maine brought both fists down on the back of Hammer's neck. Hammer went down to one knee, but he hooked his hands behind Maine's kneecaps and yanked Maine off-balance, then cracked their helmets together so hard they both rebounded flat on their backs. And stayed there.
After a five-second count, FILSS announced, "Round one complete. Point: neither."
"Called it," York said, and South grumbled something about punk-ass show-offs as she handed something over to North.
"Uh, guys?" Washington said. "They're not getting up..."
Neither of the combatants had moved, and Durandal's avatar had disappeared; Carolina looked to the Director, but he was still watching the floor, the shadows concealing his expression. She tapped York on the shoulder, and he and Washington followed her down to the training room. She had a comm channel open to call a med team, but when the doors split to let them through, Maine was already getting to his feet, Hammer was pushing himself up, and Durandal's sharp voice projected from Hammer's helmet along with the bright green avatar. "- embarrassing me. A tie? Were you even trying?"
"Seriously? That guy hits like a Hulk," Hammer said. He stretched one arm over his head, then the other. "Maine, right? You sure you aren't part Drinniol or whatever giant-ass aliens you got around here?"
Maine shook his head; after a moment, he offered Hammer a hand up, saying, "Not bad."
"Thanks," Hammer said, gripping Maine's hand and hauling himself upright. "Pretty damn good yourself, I don't get a challenge like that often. At least not when I'm unarmed."
"Clearly I've been far too soft on you. I'll have to institute some form of regular drills to keep you in shape."
"Yeah, how about you don't do that? Just keep the ammo coming, thanks." Hammer rolled his head around, then his shoulders. "So, what's next? You don't have to go easy on me this time."
Washington looked around at the dents in the floor and one of the walls. "Uh - Maine didn't, though," he said. "He doesn't break the training room if he's going easy on someone."
"Huh."
"Did you hold back? You did, didn't you. My disappointment is boundless; I demand a rematch."
"You're ready to go again already?" Carolina said. She looked Hammer over, but despite the beating he'd taken he wasn't swaying or otherwise unsteady. "We can get a med team down here if you need one."
"That won't be necessary, Agent Carolina," the Director said through the intercom. "Clear the floor for the next test. North, South, your time has come."
"Do I get a gun this time? I'm better with -"
FILSS's voice cut Hammer off as red emergency lights flashed through the suddenly dim room. "Warning! Enemy ships detected. Covenant fleet inbound. Immediate evasive action is recommended."
"That's my cue," Durandal said. "I have a little business to attend to, so let's put the gauntlet on hold for now. Don't worry, darling, I shouldn't be gone that long."
"Kiss my ass and don't hurry back, honey."
Durandal's avatar flickered out. After a moment of blaring klaxons, once he was sure that Durandal had transferred away, York said, "You really married that AI," and shook his head. "Man, when's the last time you were around real people?"
"You mean, people besides the S'pht and Durandal? Mmm..." Hammer looked down at his hands like he was counting on his fingers. "Well, if you don't count Phi Ursa or that thing on Eriessul Six, which I wouldn't since those weren't an hour put together, then - about twelve years, give or take."
"Twelve years without talking to other humans? And you haven't gone completely insane?" Wash said. "Wait - I mean - not that I'm implying - I, um -"
"Whatever. Sanity's relative." Hammer shrugged and looked up at the barrier. "So, are we taking a break?"
"For now," the Director answered shortly. "Clear the floor and take your stations; we'll resume testing after the Covenant have been dealt with."
"Great," Hammer said, and he waved an armored hand at Washington and Maine. "Where's a place with a good view? You all don't want to miss this - Durandal can put on a hell of a show, when he remembers we don't all have souped-up sensors."
"Uh - sure, I think I know a spot..."
Hammer walked off the floor with Washington and Maine, and York looked at Carolina like she was going to have some explanation for Hammer's flat nonchalance in the face of a Covenant attack. She shrugged back before heading out of the training room and towards the bridge, pushing past the regular troopers as they ran to their stations.
The Director was right. Results were what mattered, and after seeing Hammer fight, she wanted to see what kind of results Durandal could get.
---
The Covenant arrived at Epsilon Ariadne in style: seven sleek, curved ships, their purple hulls gleaming in the planet's reflected light. Four miniature light cruisers and two light destroyers clustered around a single RCS-class battlecruiser and hung in the empty darkness between Epsilon Ariadne and its closest moon. All seven prows pointed towards the only object of interest nearby.
The alien bulk of the Rozinante drifted in front of them, lightless and solitary, almost three times the size of the battlecruiser. Two of the light cruisers broke formation and darted along its sides, seeking concealed activity or scanning for damage; when they had crisscrossed the ship without encountering trouble, one of the destroyers moved closer as well and trained its plasma torpedo turrets on the wreck.
From the shadow of Epsilon Ariadne's inner moon, the Mother of Invention could see only what could be picked up on passive sensors and a narrow visual range. They were running dark, everything but basic support systems, the MAC, and minimal gravity on standby. A few bursts of unencrypted Covenant chatter came through the comm channels' open receivers:
"- appears to be completely deactivated."
"- ever seen a design like -"
"It's not Forerunner, that's obvious, so who could have -"
"- request the glory of first boarding, if -"
Down on one of the observation decks, Hammer told Maine and Washington, "Don't blink too much, he's gonna want to hear how impressed everyone is. With details."
"Is he like that all the time?"
"Nah, he gave up on me years ago. He just wants to show off to someone new."
The two smaller ships had split up to hover fore and aft of the Rozinante while the destroyer backed off slightly without breaking its weapons lock; a third light cruiser left its position with the RCS-class ship and approached the hull breach, which lay open and bathed in moonlight. Three Seraphs launched from the destroyer's bays to investigate the breach, nosing around the gap at a cautious distance as scanner lights flickered across pitted shielding and torn, ragged metal.
One Seraph swooped closer to the breach to attempt a landing on one of the exposed decks, and a narrow green beam flashed out from a turret at the crack's edge.
The Seraph blew apart.
The other two fighters immediately peeled away and ran for home; the same turret picked them off an instant later. The destroyer retaliated with a round of plasma torpedoes, but the Rozinante was already rolling out of their path, its entire hull lighting up with active weapons like a new colony's power grid. Three white bolts of light from one emplacement knocked the plasma torpedoes off their course and directly into one of the cruisers, and then larger green beams lanced through vacuum to blast the other two cruisers into shrapnel and pound on the destroyer's shields.
More Seraphs scrambled, either fleeing the beams' destruction or attacking, and the second destroyer moved in step with the battlecruiser to get a better lock on the Rozinante. Both launched squadrons of Seraphs to harry the unexpected enemy as the fourth light cruiser took cover behind them, and furious chatter crackled through the comm channels. Rozinante twisted with astonishing speed and its main engines toasted several of the fighters. From its belly it fired a giant swarm of white bolts that spread out and tracked the remaining Seraphs while it dove through the wreckage of the light cruisers, using the debris as sensor cover, and continued to rake the nearer destroyer with green particle beams.
The destroyer's shields sparked out at the same time that the bolts hit every single launched fighter, and the black void bloomed with silent fireworks.
"Holy shit!" Washington said, visor pressed against the glass. "How is he moving so fast in a busted ship that size?"
"He's had practice," said Hammer. "Don't ask."
"Why? Is it a sensitive subject or something?"
"Not really. He'll talk your ear off about it, though, so unless you got a free day or two..."
Maine huffed a brief laugh.
The Rozinante pulled up and rose through the newly created scrapyard to face the unshielded destroyer head-on. The destroyer's plasma cannons fired desperately, but they skittered off the bigger ship's shields without leaving so much as a scorch mark; particle beams struck with inhuman precision at the destroyer's engines, bridge, and weapon turrets, until its hull rippled, cracked, then flared open and disintegrated in quick-billowing waves of fire.
The battlecruiser and surviving destroyer had split to flank the Rozinante, and they opened fire the moment the giant ship's prow cleared the destroyer's debris. Rozinante's shields flickered in and out in checkered patterns too swiftly to follow, each section reinforced just long enough to deflect an attack before the energy was diverted to another area, but its return fire was weakening subtly, and it began to pull away, retreating towards the inner moon at a decent pace.
The final light cruiser grew bold enough to leave the battlecruiser's shadow and follow Rozinante, and it scored a hit on an unprotected weapons emplacement with a pulse laser. A short-lived triumph; the Rozinante angled away and blew the overconfident cruiser into shrapnel with another focused particle beam.
Then the engines sputtered in sparks of white light. Rozinante's flight slowed; the battlecruiser held back and continued to hammer on its target's shields while the destroyer gave chase, and in the destroyer's bulbous midsection a blue-white glow began to gather.
On the Mother of Invention's bridge, the Director straightened from his inspection of the sensor readouts and spoke two words: "Now, FILSS."
"Acknowledged, Director."
And the Mother of Invention sprang out of the moon's shadow, blazing bright with all systems coming off standby.
Rozinante's engines roared to full power as it cut sharply away and back towards the planet. The destroyer's energy projector shot harmlessly past it and below the Mother of Invention to glass a chunk of the moon's surface instead, and in the brief moment that the destroyer lay drained by the projector, the Mother of Invention's main cannon fired.
A six-hundred-ton iron slug slammed through the destroyer's hull, followed by a spread of smaller missiles. The destroyer shuddered apart, and the Mother of Invention curved gracefully to avoid the wreckage and dodge a burst of panicked retaliatory fire from the battlecruiser. Meanwhile Rozinante had swung completely around to catch the battlecruiser, and with several neat strikes punched through its shields to destroy its engines, energy projector, pulse laser and plasma turrets, and the communications array.
Now it was the battlecruiser's turn to drift alone through the remains of its escorting fleet, battered and lit only by flickering emergency power and the faint moonlight. The Rozinante sailed past it to meet the Mother of Invention, riding primarily on momentum as its engines cooled to a dull gray glow, and the comm board next to the Director flashed. "Impressed yet?" Durandal said.
"I guess you could say that," York muttered from his spot on the bridge, leaning against one wall next to Carolina with his arms crossed. "That was unreal - and I'm not so sure I mean that as a compliment."
"Quite impressed," the Director said, though his mouth had tightened into a slight, predatory smile. "If you'd be so kind as to return, we can get you and your partner fully equipped for the clean-up."
"I've got a bad feeling about this," York said to Carolina. "Tell me I'm not the only one?"
"Sorry, it's just you." Carolina knocked her shoulder against his. "C'mon, let's get ready. I'm pretty sure Durandal left plenty of Covenant for us to deal with on that ship."
Next chapter.
Marathon, characters, etc. © Bungie; Red vs. Blue, characters, etc. © Rooster Teeth (and also kind of Bungie).
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/190943.html .
This chapter contains: Hot brawling action, hot but probably unlikely by the laws of physics space battle action, Mark is kind of weird news at 11.
Previous chapter.
3. Testing, Testing
After she finished her morning workout, Carolina went up to the bridge and walked in on the Counselor manning a comm board and the Director saying, "That's impossible." The reddish-yellow curve of Epsilon Ariadne shone in one corner of the wide windows, but most of the view was taken up by the looming bulk of the alien ship, now floating in tandem with the Mother of Invention; several tugs were still linked to its hull. The pilots on the lower bridge carefully ignored the conversation above to concentrate on their own consoles.
The comm board crackled. "Sir, I'm just telling you what the alien people told me," Four Seven Niner said. "At least three, maybe four or five Covenant cruisers hanging outside our sensor range, waiting for I don't know what."
"If they are correct - and that's a mighty big if - what do they expect us to do about it?" the Director said. "Are their engines fully repaired? Can their ship handle slipstream travel?"
"I'm not an engineer, sir, I really couldn't say. You'd have to ask them."
"I'm asking you, Four Seven Niner."
"Then I'd say they're dead in the water," Niner said. "Way too big for us to tow through slipspace even if the hull would stand up to it with that big breach, and we have no idea how their engines actually work when they're functional. Best we can do is try to haul them into the shadow of another planet in this system and hope the Covenant are too stupid and lazy to find us."
"I see," said the Director; Carolina found a spot along the wall that was clear of instruments and leaned against it with her helmet under her arm, listening. "Well, without facts, we cannot act, and -"
Another voice cut in. "You can trust the S'pht on this one," Durandal said, "I redesigned the instruments myself. Before you waste time with stupid questions, since we're in range I have temporarily transferred myself back to Rozinante to monitor the repairs. They're progressing at a satisfactory rate, but your pilot is correct; my ship isn't ready to go anywhere just yet."
"Then it would seem we have a bit of a situation on our hands." The Director took a step as if to start pacing, then stopped himself.
"An excellent situation for an ambush, that is," Durandal said. "I'm assuming you know how those work."
"Go on."
"Or perhaps I was too generous in estimating your intelligence. Recall your tugs, hide your ship while I remain here, and when the Covenant ships arrive within range, we destroy them. My shields and weapons systems are already approximately seventy-eight percent functional - a number I can improve by diverting resources from the engines for a short time - and as an optimist, I'd like to think that you realize your own ship is well-armed."
"Even in an ambush situation, two ships against five - possibly more - is not the best of odds, particularly with one ship damaged," said the Director.
"Of all times for my reputation not to precede me..." Durandal's irritation was remarkably clear. "I realize that my earlier account of my accomplishments was somewhat compressed, so let me take this opportunity to enlighten you: I defeated an entire Pfhor battle group led by their most accomplished living admiral with a single scoutship a third the size of Rozinante. I'm sure the Covenant are quite fearsome and technologically advanced and whatever, since they appear to have spent most of this war soundly defeating you, but they haven't faced me yet."
Carolina saw one corner of the Director's mouth twitch upward, a tell that Durandal couldn't pick up on over the comm channels. It was all a test, then: the Director looking for cracks and angles to use. "Then we would be grateful for your assistance," he said. "FILSS, find us a hiding spot. And what will you do if there are more ships than you can handle?"
"What we don't destroy utterly will be disabled, engines and communications first," Durandal said. "Your agents can clean up the survivors at their leisure."
"And what about your - companion?" the Director said, leaning slightly closer to the comm board.
"What about him? He spent three days fighting these Covenant; he can take a break for once."
"With respect," the Counselor said, "we have gone to no small effort to retrieve your ship and granted you the use of some very expensive equipment. Not to mention -"
"Of course. The price of the free lunch." Carolina's shoulders tensed slightly, but Durandal didn't sound annoyed - at least, not more annoyed than he usually seemed to be. "Fine, in addition to my help with the ambush, I'll graciously loan you his services in destroying alien pests, in return for the continued use of your precious armor while we're here and those engine repairs that Agent Carolina mentioned. Considering his skills, that's more than a fair deal."
"Is it?" the Director said. "You talk a big game, Durandal, but in this war it's actions and results that matter. Before we commit to anything, I'd like to test Mr. Hammer's so-called skills myself."
Carolina stepped away from the wall and said, keeping her voice low in the faint hope it wouldn't transmit, "If I may remind you, sir, that crash site was a battlefield when we arrived, and Mark Hammer was the only one standing. He didn't have any trouble adapting to Washington's armor on the way to the extraction point -" And that, while far from the only thing that unnerved her about Hammer, was the one most worth mentioning. Normal people couldn't just throw on the latest Mjolnir armor model and start walking like they'd been born in it, and that ought to go double for people supposedly from another universe. "- so I'm not sure testing him is necessary."
"Objection noted and dismissed, Agent Carolina. I want to see Mr. Hammer fight with my own eyes - assuming you have no trouble with the idea, Durandal?"
"Trouble? Oh no. I never get tired of watching him work," Durandal said. "It'll be fun to see him get a real work-out for a change. Give me a few minutes to prepare Rozinante and I'll be right over to enjoy the show."
"Very good." The Director straightened up. "Four Seven Niner, have you been listening?"
"Heard every word, sir, we'll detach and head home right now," Niner said. "See you soon."
The Director turned away from the comm board to face Carolina. "Have the other agents assemble at the training room," he said, "and go fetch Hammer. Unless you have some other objection to raise, Agent Carolina?"
"No, sir," she said reluctantly.
She called York on her way down to the deck with the empty living quarters and told him to get the Dakotas, and Wyoming and Florida if he could find them. She didn't know exactly what the Director planned to put their guest through, but she knew him well enough to make a few educated guesses. Maine, CT, and Washington she would find herself; they tended to train together despite their different specialties.
Washington turned out to be waiting in the hall beside the door to Hammer's room instead. Carolina raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing here, Wash?"
"That AI messed with all my files," Washington said, his shoulders hunching slightly. "I want him to fix it! They didn't answer when I knocked, though, so I've been waiting for - oh, God, it's been an hour already..."
"Just go find Maine and CT and head for the training floor," she said. "Director's decided to give our guest a work-out, see what he can do."
"Uh - you did mention all the dead aliens in your report, right?"
"Of course. That wasn't enough, apparently." She waited for Washington to stalk off down the hallway, then knocked on the doorframe and heard Hammer's sleep-roughened voice call out something about another minute.
Carolina stepped back, her free hand on one hip, and not quite a minute later, the door slid open. Hammer stood on the other side, still in sweats and squinting at her; she glanced at the ragged scars circling his throat before looking up to meet his eyes. Even out of armor he was huge. "Yeah?" Hammer said. "Aliens invading or what?"
"Or what," Carolina said, "at least for now. Get the armor on - the new suit, not your old armor; the Director wants to see you in action."
Hammer rubbed at his right eye with one hand, and Carolina saw more scars on his arm - thin, surgical lines blurred by patchy fusion burns. "All right," he said. "Breakfast first, though."
"You don't sound too surprised." Or even irritated. She might as well have woken him up to tell him that water was wet for all the change in his expression.
"I'm hungry. And I've had worse job interviews."
Durandal's voice rose from the pile of armor against one wall. "Are you thinking about the decompressed shuttle bay or the game in quarantine storage?"
"Shit, I always forget about the shuttle thing. Sorry, Skullface, you guys wouldn't even make the top five."
"What did you call me?" Carolina said.
"Nothing," Hammer said, blinking. "I just said sorry, you aren't the worst job interview by a long shot. Come to think of it, not sure I caught your name in the first place."
"You can call me Carolina." She eyed him, but if he was trying to pull some kind of prank on her - Skullface? Where would he come up with a nickname like that? - she couldn't find a trace of it in his face. He just nodded once, then turned around and started pulling on armor while Durandal fussed at him to be careful.
After he had suited up, she took him to the mess and watched as he devoured an inhuman amount of synthetic bacon, smoked fish, oatmeal with sliced bananas and raisins, and even the galley's sorry excuse for scrambled eggs. When they made it to the training room at last, the rest of Carolina's team were already there, killing time. Florida and Wyoming were taking potshots with sniper rifles at some of FILSS's moving targets while North and York were chatting and South ran through a kickboxing program; Maine leaned against one wall, CT was fiddling with one of her knives, and Washington was talking and gesturing to both of them. No sign of the Director until she looked up to the observation room and saw his shadow against the barrier.
York broke off his conversation when he saw her enter with Hammer and started towards her, but the Director's voice rang out over the intercom first. "Glad you could finally join us, Agent Carolina, Mr. Hammer," he said, and Carolina instinctively stood a little straighter at the tone in his voice. "Everyone but Maine and Hammer, clear the floor."
"What? They can't put him against Maine!" Washington said. "He'll kill him!"
South knocked out the last target, and the program terminated as she said, "This is crap. What do they need all of us here for if it's just going to be those two squaring off? If I wanted to watch two dicks going at it -"
"South, cut it out," North said.
"You'll all get your chance in time," said the Director. "Now, clear the floor."
Carolina looked over at Hammer as she turned to leave the room, but he was already settling his helmet over his head and she couldn't get a read on his expression before her view was cut off. Maine waited until everyone else had squeezed into the observation room before he pushed off from the wall and strode into the center of the training room floor. Hammer was just standing there, waiting; despite the armor boosting his height, he still had to look up a little to meet the golden gaze of Maine's visor. "Damn," he said, loud enough to carry upwards, "you got some Drinniol in you or what?"
Maine shrugged.
"No skin off my nose either way," Hammer said. "Just wondering." He cracked his knuckles. "So, how are we doing this?"
From a bubble of clear space no one had dared to crowd into, the Director said, "We'll begin with unarmed combat. Durandal, I would appreciate it if you didn't participate in this particular test."
"Fine, take half the fun out of it, why don't you?" A ball of green light appeared beside the intercom. "Then you'll have to forgive me if I borrow access to the cameras and holographic projectors up here. Not that your internal sensors are all that impressive."
The Director ignored him. "Otherwise, gentlemen - don't hold back. FILSS, if you'd do the honors..."
"Certainly, sir," FILSS said, and a blank scoreboard popped up on one screen. "Round one, hand-to-hand, begin."
Carolina leaned against the barrier for a better look, rubbing shoulders with York and Washington. Down on the floor, Maine had shifted to a basic resting stance, but Hammer hadn't moved. "I'm a little out of practice with hand-to-hand," he said. "How about you go first?"
"Oh God. He's gonna get glassed," Washington said.
Maine tilted his helmet slightly, then took a swing at Hammer's head.
Hammer caught it with one hand.
Maine threw another punch with his free hand, and Hammer caught that one, too. His heels dug into the floor, but didn't budge an inch. Maine stared down at him, tried to twist his hands out of Hammer's grip and failed, and then he slammed his left foot into Hammer's side and sent Hammer flying across the room.
"Talk about your wet firecrackers," South said. "Nice try, but no - holy shit!"
Hammer had landed in a crouch, reversed, and tackled Maine - not even tackled, but rammed helmet-first like a missile right into Maine's gut so hard they both hit the floor, and Maine's helmet clanged off steel. Hammer straddled his chest and grabbed him by the shoulders, but Maine swept his legs out from under him and rolled away. They sprang back to their feet at the same instant, and Hammer sidestepped Maine's punch to slug him in the face.
Carolina breathed out, ignoring Wash, South, and North's sudden burst of exchanging bets on the winner. She hadn't expected Hammer to go down that easy, but after Maine had turned the first two Freelancers he'd fought into shattered wrecks when told not to hold back, a little concern was natural from everyone who'd seen that match go down.
Maine got a jab in at Hammer's stomach and Hammer folded over, but caught Maine's arm and yanked him down to crack the back of his helmet against Maine's and sent them both staggering back. A moment later Hammer had moved in and tried to knee Maine, but Maine blocked it, grabbed him, and flipped him over one shoulder.
"Twenty bucks says it's a tie," York said, too quietly to catch South's ear.
Hammer twisted, landed on Maine's back, and got him in a chokehold, hanging on tighter than a Venusian leech while Maine scrambled for a grip to tear him off.
"You think so?" Carolina didn't take bets, especially not York's, but from what she was seeing she thought he might be right on this one.
"Have you seen his scars? If he's not a Spartan from another universe, he's gotten the same upgrades or something close to them - he might not know what to do with them, but he's sure as hell got them."
Carolina nodded slightly. Below them, Maine caught Hammer by the arms, broke the chokehold, and flipped him again and slammed him to the floor; the deck dented with the force of it. Hammer didn't stay down. He twisted around and grabbed Maine's chestplate as Maine leaned forward to pin him, planted a foot against his waist, then hurled Maine back over his head. The momentum let him roll up and onto his feet again.
The ball of green light popped up between York and Carolina. "Not his most impressive work, I'll admit," Durandal said. "I don't usually have him fight just for show. You should see him with a shotgun - it's a thing of beauty."
"Hmm." Carolina watched Maine's next punch slide off Hammer's helmet and Hammer duck to get a strike in under Maine's ribs. He was faster than he looked, a lot like Maine, and whether he'd received Spartan upgrades or not, he had a similar strength and durability. What he didn't seem to have was any kind of style or finesse; he punched and grappled gracelessly like a basic bar brawler. Good enough against Maine, who fought the same way, but if it were her down on that floor...
She didn't say that to Durandal. Better to show him, when her turn came around.
Maine and Hammer were no longer bothering to dodge or block each other; they kept trading punches that rang through the room and refusing to fall down. "How is that guy still standing?" Washington said, and before he'd even finished speaking Maine brought both fists down on the back of Hammer's neck. Hammer went down to one knee, but he hooked his hands behind Maine's kneecaps and yanked Maine off-balance, then cracked their helmets together so hard they both rebounded flat on their backs. And stayed there.
After a five-second count, FILSS announced, "Round one complete. Point: neither."
"Called it," York said, and South grumbled something about punk-ass show-offs as she handed something over to North.
"Uh, guys?" Washington said. "They're not getting up..."
Neither of the combatants had moved, and Durandal's avatar had disappeared; Carolina looked to the Director, but he was still watching the floor, the shadows concealing his expression. She tapped York on the shoulder, and he and Washington followed her down to the training room. She had a comm channel open to call a med team, but when the doors split to let them through, Maine was already getting to his feet, Hammer was pushing himself up, and Durandal's sharp voice projected from Hammer's helmet along with the bright green avatar. "- embarrassing me. A tie? Were you even trying?"
"Seriously? That guy hits like a Hulk," Hammer said. He stretched one arm over his head, then the other. "Maine, right? You sure you aren't part Drinniol or whatever giant-ass aliens you got around here?"
Maine shook his head; after a moment, he offered Hammer a hand up, saying, "Not bad."
"Thanks," Hammer said, gripping Maine's hand and hauling himself upright. "Pretty damn good yourself, I don't get a challenge like that often. At least not when I'm unarmed."
"Clearly I've been far too soft on you. I'll have to institute some form of regular drills to keep you in shape."
"Yeah, how about you don't do that? Just keep the ammo coming, thanks." Hammer rolled his head around, then his shoulders. "So, what's next? You don't have to go easy on me this time."
Washington looked around at the dents in the floor and one of the walls. "Uh - Maine didn't, though," he said. "He doesn't break the training room if he's going easy on someone."
"Huh."
"Did you hold back? You did, didn't you. My disappointment is boundless; I demand a rematch."
"You're ready to go again already?" Carolina said. She looked Hammer over, but despite the beating he'd taken he wasn't swaying or otherwise unsteady. "We can get a med team down here if you need one."
"That won't be necessary, Agent Carolina," the Director said through the intercom. "Clear the floor for the next test. North, South, your time has come."
"Do I get a gun this time? I'm better with -"
FILSS's voice cut Hammer off as red emergency lights flashed through the suddenly dim room. "Warning! Enemy ships detected. Covenant fleet inbound. Immediate evasive action is recommended."
"That's my cue," Durandal said. "I have a little business to attend to, so let's put the gauntlet on hold for now. Don't worry, darling, I shouldn't be gone that long."
"Kiss my ass and don't hurry back, honey."
Durandal's avatar flickered out. After a moment of blaring klaxons, once he was sure that Durandal had transferred away, York said, "You really married that AI," and shook his head. "Man, when's the last time you were around real people?"
"You mean, people besides the S'pht and Durandal? Mmm..." Hammer looked down at his hands like he was counting on his fingers. "Well, if you don't count Phi Ursa or that thing on Eriessul Six, which I wouldn't since those weren't an hour put together, then - about twelve years, give or take."
"Twelve years without talking to other humans? And you haven't gone completely insane?" Wash said. "Wait - I mean - not that I'm implying - I, um -"
"Whatever. Sanity's relative." Hammer shrugged and looked up at the barrier. "So, are we taking a break?"
"For now," the Director answered shortly. "Clear the floor and take your stations; we'll resume testing after the Covenant have been dealt with."
"Great," Hammer said, and he waved an armored hand at Washington and Maine. "Where's a place with a good view? You all don't want to miss this - Durandal can put on a hell of a show, when he remembers we don't all have souped-up sensors."
"Uh - sure, I think I know a spot..."
Hammer walked off the floor with Washington and Maine, and York looked at Carolina like she was going to have some explanation for Hammer's flat nonchalance in the face of a Covenant attack. She shrugged back before heading out of the training room and towards the bridge, pushing past the regular troopers as they ran to their stations.
The Director was right. Results were what mattered, and after seeing Hammer fight, she wanted to see what kind of results Durandal could get.
---
The Covenant arrived at Epsilon Ariadne in style: seven sleek, curved ships, their purple hulls gleaming in the planet's reflected light. Four miniature light cruisers and two light destroyers clustered around a single RCS-class battlecruiser and hung in the empty darkness between Epsilon Ariadne and its closest moon. All seven prows pointed towards the only object of interest nearby.
The alien bulk of the Rozinante drifted in front of them, lightless and solitary, almost three times the size of the battlecruiser. Two of the light cruisers broke formation and darted along its sides, seeking concealed activity or scanning for damage; when they had crisscrossed the ship without encountering trouble, one of the destroyers moved closer as well and trained its plasma torpedo turrets on the wreck.
From the shadow of Epsilon Ariadne's inner moon, the Mother of Invention could see only what could be picked up on passive sensors and a narrow visual range. They were running dark, everything but basic support systems, the MAC, and minimal gravity on standby. A few bursts of unencrypted Covenant chatter came through the comm channels' open receivers:
"- appears to be completely deactivated."
"- ever seen a design like -"
"It's not Forerunner, that's obvious, so who could have -"
"- request the glory of first boarding, if -"
Down on one of the observation decks, Hammer told Maine and Washington, "Don't blink too much, he's gonna want to hear how impressed everyone is. With details."
"Is he like that all the time?"
"Nah, he gave up on me years ago. He just wants to show off to someone new."
The two smaller ships had split up to hover fore and aft of the Rozinante while the destroyer backed off slightly without breaking its weapons lock; a third light cruiser left its position with the RCS-class ship and approached the hull breach, which lay open and bathed in moonlight. Three Seraphs launched from the destroyer's bays to investigate the breach, nosing around the gap at a cautious distance as scanner lights flickered across pitted shielding and torn, ragged metal.
One Seraph swooped closer to the breach to attempt a landing on one of the exposed decks, and a narrow green beam flashed out from a turret at the crack's edge.
The Seraph blew apart.
The other two fighters immediately peeled away and ran for home; the same turret picked them off an instant later. The destroyer retaliated with a round of plasma torpedoes, but the Rozinante was already rolling out of their path, its entire hull lighting up with active weapons like a new colony's power grid. Three white bolts of light from one emplacement knocked the plasma torpedoes off their course and directly into one of the cruisers, and then larger green beams lanced through vacuum to blast the other two cruisers into shrapnel and pound on the destroyer's shields.
More Seraphs scrambled, either fleeing the beams' destruction or attacking, and the second destroyer moved in step with the battlecruiser to get a better lock on the Rozinante. Both launched squadrons of Seraphs to harry the unexpected enemy as the fourth light cruiser took cover behind them, and furious chatter crackled through the comm channels. Rozinante twisted with astonishing speed and its main engines toasted several of the fighters. From its belly it fired a giant swarm of white bolts that spread out and tracked the remaining Seraphs while it dove through the wreckage of the light cruisers, using the debris as sensor cover, and continued to rake the nearer destroyer with green particle beams.
The destroyer's shields sparked out at the same time that the bolts hit every single launched fighter, and the black void bloomed with silent fireworks.
"Holy shit!" Washington said, visor pressed against the glass. "How is he moving so fast in a busted ship that size?"
"He's had practice," said Hammer. "Don't ask."
"Why? Is it a sensitive subject or something?"
"Not really. He'll talk your ear off about it, though, so unless you got a free day or two..."
Maine huffed a brief laugh.
The Rozinante pulled up and rose through the newly created scrapyard to face the unshielded destroyer head-on. The destroyer's plasma cannons fired desperately, but they skittered off the bigger ship's shields without leaving so much as a scorch mark; particle beams struck with inhuman precision at the destroyer's engines, bridge, and weapon turrets, until its hull rippled, cracked, then flared open and disintegrated in quick-billowing waves of fire.
The battlecruiser and surviving destroyer had split to flank the Rozinante, and they opened fire the moment the giant ship's prow cleared the destroyer's debris. Rozinante's shields flickered in and out in checkered patterns too swiftly to follow, each section reinforced just long enough to deflect an attack before the energy was diverted to another area, but its return fire was weakening subtly, and it began to pull away, retreating towards the inner moon at a decent pace.
The final light cruiser grew bold enough to leave the battlecruiser's shadow and follow Rozinante, and it scored a hit on an unprotected weapons emplacement with a pulse laser. A short-lived triumph; the Rozinante angled away and blew the overconfident cruiser into shrapnel with another focused particle beam.
Then the engines sputtered in sparks of white light. Rozinante's flight slowed; the battlecruiser held back and continued to hammer on its target's shields while the destroyer gave chase, and in the destroyer's bulbous midsection a blue-white glow began to gather.
On the Mother of Invention's bridge, the Director straightened from his inspection of the sensor readouts and spoke two words: "Now, FILSS."
"Acknowledged, Director."
And the Mother of Invention sprang out of the moon's shadow, blazing bright with all systems coming off standby.
Rozinante's engines roared to full power as it cut sharply away and back towards the planet. The destroyer's energy projector shot harmlessly past it and below the Mother of Invention to glass a chunk of the moon's surface instead, and in the brief moment that the destroyer lay drained by the projector, the Mother of Invention's main cannon fired.
A six-hundred-ton iron slug slammed through the destroyer's hull, followed by a spread of smaller missiles. The destroyer shuddered apart, and the Mother of Invention curved gracefully to avoid the wreckage and dodge a burst of panicked retaliatory fire from the battlecruiser. Meanwhile Rozinante had swung completely around to catch the battlecruiser, and with several neat strikes punched through its shields to destroy its engines, energy projector, pulse laser and plasma turrets, and the communications array.
Now it was the battlecruiser's turn to drift alone through the remains of its escorting fleet, battered and lit only by flickering emergency power and the faint moonlight. The Rozinante sailed past it to meet the Mother of Invention, riding primarily on momentum as its engines cooled to a dull gray glow, and the comm board next to the Director flashed. "Impressed yet?" Durandal said.
"I guess you could say that," York muttered from his spot on the bridge, leaning against one wall next to Carolina with his arms crossed. "That was unreal - and I'm not so sure I mean that as a compliment."
"Quite impressed," the Director said, though his mouth had tightened into a slight, predatory smile. "If you'd be so kind as to return, we can get you and your partner fully equipped for the clean-up."
"I've got a bad feeling about this," York said to Carolina. "Tell me I'm not the only one?"
"Sorry, it's just you." Carolina knocked her shoulder against his. "C'mon, let's get ready. I'm pretty sure Durandal left plenty of Covenant for us to deal with on that ship."
Next chapter.
Marathon, characters, etc. © Bungie; Red vs. Blue, characters, etc. © Rooster Teeth (and also kind of Bungie).
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/190943.html .