(David Pov)
Walking through the first set of doors after our descent down some floors, I was immediately greeted with blaring sirens and flashing red lights on every side of the hallway. In an instant, the blast doors were half closed before slamming shut entirely, sealing my entire force in a section of the corridor.
"I am guessing that wasn't us?" Private Jenkins said as he looked around at the steel box we were trapped in.
I brought up my hand to the side of my helmet from muscle memory. "Daisy, Cal mind telling me why I am currently stuck in a 30 by 30 metal box?"
"It wasn't our fault this time!" Daisy's voice came in clear, "Besides, we are stuck in the same spot."
'Just perfect,' I shook my head.
Turning, I found a couple of ODSTs gathered at the blast door leading toward our objective. Each of them took turns trying to move a single panel of the door, only for it not to make any sound nor budge in any way.
Jorge approached from behind them. "Mind if I try?" he asked, getting their attention with his deep voice.
They paused, looked at each other, and moved away from the door. "Go ahead," one of them said, motioning to the door.
Jorge cracked his knuckles before finding what would appear to be a gap in the doors, but was actually an additional divot for another lock. A moment went by, and he jerked as his Mjolnir bulged, acting as secondary muscles while his frame shook from the applied force. The reinforced steel groaned, the frame flexing just enough to let flakes of old paint drift to the floor. Then the movement stopped.
Sheila stepped forward, stowing her weapon on her back, and grabbed one half of the door while Jorge adjusted the other half. The metal began to creak and move in their slots slowly, an inch by inch, not good enough.
"Stop it, you two," I ordered, and they promptly let go of the door, letting it slam shut again.
"Cap," I turned toward Johnson in the corner of the room, "Got a terminal over here. Any of you three capable of finding a way through this door with it?" he asked.
"No, maybe if Michael was here…" I stopped to think for a moment.
"Michael?" he asked, but I paused as I remembered something.
Reaching into my armor, I retrieved the key card I had acquired earlier. "Try that," I threw the plastic slip like a playing card.
Johnson caught it and swiped it across the center of the terminal's screen. For a beat, nothing happened, and it appeared we were back at square one then-
A chime
A moment later, the screen lit up green as the blast doors slowly retracted. I told him to keep it going forward on the off chance that we get seperated.
"Next time, remind me not to argue when you loot dead bodies," Johnson said as he walked through the doors, only to stop.
WeeeeWRAwwwwww
We stood at a four-way junction, and at the three closed doors were the groans and sounds of what sounded like Jackals as they clawed at the doors. Among the sounds were bangs that, by the weight of their sounds, appeared to be from Brutes. They rattled the doors, but the metal held.
"Quickly, get into defensive positions before they try cutting through the doors with plasma cutters," I said, moving toward one of the edges of the wall. "We'll pop open one door at a time and clear them out."
At my order, the entire force split into two sides of the hall, hugging the bulkhead walls with whatever cover they could find. Johnson moved to a panel on one of the branching corridors. With my nod, he swiped the key card and the door opened.
In the spot in front of us stood a pair of Brutes and some jackals, grunts behind them. They jumped at the sudden movement of the door, completely off guard to our presence.
Immediately, suppressed fire ripped out of the barrel of my gun as I focused on the surprised Brutes leading the Covenant forces in the hall. The little ones weren't a priority in comparison to the big ones.
The shield of the first one glowed before popping and letting in a hail of my rifle rounds into the ape. The rest of the aliens were mowed down execution style, in front of a firing line of suppressed rifle and SMG fire.
Casings' echoes filled the hall after the last grunt was butchered.
"Reload!" Johnson said as he walked to the panel leading to the next section of hall. This time there was no sound coming from the other side of the door.
'They might have caught on,' I realized as I dropped a magazine that held only a few remaining rounds.
Another chime and the door opened for us to repeat. This time the first thing front and center was a Brute that looked like it was holding its ear to the door before it disappeared in front of him.
He was eviscerated, his shield dropping almost instantly as everyone focused on shooting him. Green plasma bolts began to be fired back at us, one even forcing me to side step closer to the wall.
A few ODSTs with BRs and DMRs, after a moment of precision firing, killed whatever was down the corridor. I, along with others, began to relocate to better firing positions in the connector.
"Last one! Reloa-" Johnson called out like last time only to be stopped as the door seemingly opened on its own.
A wave of purple needles flooded out of the doorway, homing in on whatever life form they could find. "Take Cover!" someone yelled.
I reached forward, grabbing Johnson's shoulder before yanking him backwards behind me. I brought up my gauntlet, turning my visor away as the purple crystals shattered against my Mjolnir's outer shell.
With Johnson behind me, I returned fire with my rifle. "Thanks for the save," he said as he shook off the sudden motion.
"Don't mention it," I said as I concentrated fire. The enemies in this corridor had made barricades to stall us.
"Frag out!" an ODST yelled before a green and black ball soared down into the back of the corridor behind the barricades
POP
The sound of the grenade rang out, and the enemy fire ceased.
A few ODSTs moved forward, approaching cautiously as the rest of us watched. "Clear!" one of them shouted through their helmet.
"Listen up!" Johnson shouted, getting everyone's attention, "If they didn't know we were here before, then they sure as hell do now!"
"Keep tight; otherwise you will be separated by one of these doors," he said, to which I nodded.
"We are close to the first objective," I added as we began to move through the second corridor.
We sprinted down the hallway, knocking down a few stray Grunts and Jackals in our path. Jorge, Sheila, and I at the center led the way as a spear tip, trying to take the most attention from our enemies.
"Cal, Daisy sitrep?" It had been more than a moment since we'd last talked, so I decided to check in.
I could hear the signature snaps of DMR fire as Cal's comm came to life, "Not far from the objective, David."
"Yeah," Daisy said through another line, "But we are up to our necks in covies down here. And I am not going to lie, but they may be trying to steal the data we came for."
My blood ran cold; if they acquired the data we came for, then not only would we lose a piece of technology that could even up the odds for the UNSC. We would also be strengthening the Covenant with a new shiny piece of ONI R&D.
"Understood," I said at last, "If you can't punch through, then at least stall them for as long as you can. I'll check if they accessed or copied any data when we get to the main servers on our level. David over and out,"
As I finished the update from the other half of my team, I nearly tripped as a blast door closed in front of me. I skidded to a stop before pivoting to move backwards, only to find another door coming down, severing my force into two.
'Damn it,' I thought before looking around at who was on my side. It was Jorge, Sheila, Johnson, the recruit Jenkins, and three other ODSTs along with myself.
"No terminal to unlock the door between the rest of the ODSTs and us," Sheila informed from the corner of the room.
"These doors aren't closing by coincidence," I said, looking over to Johnson. "Someone or something is in the security offices above. We need to take them out."
"Agreed," Johnson nodded before swiping a terminal for the path ahead. He turned and looked over to the ODSTs.
"You four take this," he handed the key card to one of the ODSTs, "Go up and shoot any inhuman son of a bitch that is dumb enough to stop us from getting to our objective," he said, clearly getting a series of affirmations.
Meanwhile, I got on the coms with the Corporal on the other side of the door, "Corporal status?"
"Winded from all the running but fine," he said, "No way to get this door from our side, and none from yours, I take it?"
"Negative," I confirmed before taking a look at the schematics of the facility once again, "On your left side of the hall there should be a maintenance passage. Pry it open and proceed down to level seven and assist Daisy and Cal, then move to the armory to secure the scuttling charges. We'll handle the main objective."
"A-ffirm, don't mess up," his voice terminated.
"Dave," I heard, but was surprised to hear the name uttered by Sergeant Johnson of all people, "These four will take out whatever is putting these damn doors down, but if they went back the way we came it would take all day, and that's not even mentioning the aliens they'd run into. Any ideas?"
"Yeah-" I began to say before I stopped and looked around the room, specifically at the top corners of the room. My eyes settled on a small black circular object with a single red dot pulsing on it. I drew my rifle and put a bullet through its lens, causing a spark to crackle.
"The vents quickly," I said, pointing at the grate above me. "Jorge, help them up."
"Aye Aye," he said, setting his machine gun down and boosting the four up after the first ODST yanked off the grate.
Johnson glanced at the vent in the ceiling. "Hell of a route," he said
"Beats walking back up," Jenkins said with a shrug.
"Maybe," Johnson responded, still looking at it before smacking Wallace's shoulder, "Hope you're not claustrophobic, Wally."
After that, Wally stepped into the basket Jorge made with his hands and was half-thrown into the metal ventilation.
Lastly, I informed Daisy, "Daisy, we ran into trouble and got separated from most of the force. I am sending them down to help you break through."
"We are babysitting again?" she remarked through my comm, acknowledging me.
'If she has time to be a smart ass, then it must not be too bad down there,' I thought before turning back to who was left.
Jorge, Sheila, Johnson, and I, four Spartans of two generations.
"They have their orders, and we have ours; let's move," I said, moving forward to check the corridors for hidden enemies.
"Try to keep up, Sergeant," Sheila said, bumping his arm playfully.
"Worry about yourself; I was dropping bombs on innies while you were learning your ABCs," he responded with what I only assumed to be a smirk from beneath his helmet.