Chapter 11

"Sir?" Jerome asked quizzically, "it will be tight. We will have to get out of the blast radius before the thing is dead" I said shooting down some anti-air Flood forms.

"I can't tell if that will be the hard or the easy part" Jerome replied, "neither can I"

"I am arriving soon. Tell Cutter to prepare a lot of Pelicans" I told him.

"Affirmative, Sir"

The Proto-Gravemind entered my sight line, "damn, that's big" the Proto nearly matched my height even while I was a few dozen meters in the air.

I landed at the Command post. It wasn't a Firebase like it would have been in the game. The airspace is too hot for a Condor to get here with one.

"Sir" a soldier saluted me after I unhooked the Shiva from the Wasp, "I was told to come to greet you and your friend over there" he nudged toward the nuke, "we will take care of her; Follow me, I will take you to SPARTAN Jerome" I followed the Marine into the Command centre.

"I'm telling you, Jerome, we have to rush and destroy all of them at once and then go for the big one!" I heard a female voice yell, "and I'm telling you! If we go in together we will lose the base! those things know we will have no place to retreat to!" Jerome yelled back.

The Marine opened the tent flap to the war room before leaving. I entered and saw Jerome and Alice staring each other down at either end of a holographic table. They either didn't notice me or chose to ignore me, most likely the latter.

I turned to my left and saw Jorge, "how long?" He sighed, "the only time they stopped for more than five minutes was when you called" I gave my sigh.

I walked to the middle of the table.

*SLAM*

Both my hands crashed on the table, the hologram flickering slightly, "while you both may be right, you still need to shut your goddamn mouths. We're fighting a parasitic life form that becomes stronger the more of us die and the more you yell at each other the less time we have to get back to the Spirit"

"And who's fault is that?" Alice remarked. I turned to her and walked up to her, standing over her, "Is there something you would like to say, SPARTAN?"

She stared into my eyes, "if it weren't for you we wouldn't have our forces split and we wouldn't be in such a time crunch"

"Yes, you're right. I underestimated the power of that creature. I thought we would have been able to run past it, I was wrong which is why I'm here fixing my mistake. What are you doing?" I tried having the Spirits troops run past the Proto but it made sure no one could run away, by the time I realised what happened the Spirit was already in the suction. The Proto sent its troops between them and the Spirit so they couldn't leave.

"I brought one of the Spirits three nukes. With it, we will launch a full assault on the smaller creatures to draw the hostiles away while I take the nuke to the big one" Jorge stepped forward quickly. "Are you crazy? That's a suicide mission"

"I know that, but right now it's our only option. I caused a lot of people to lose their lives. I have to correct that" Alice lowered her head and left the tent. "I'll rally the troops" I looked at Jerome and he gave me a hearty nod while following Alice.

I turned to leave the war room and Jorge put his hand on my shoulder. "Russ, I can't let you do this alone" I sighed and looked into his visor. "Are you sure about this? It might be too dangerous, I don't want to lose two SPARTANS" if I could see Jorge's face I know he would have been smiling. "Then let's lose none"

"What's the plan to get it there?" Jorge asked me. "Well," I started. "We can take a Pelican or a Warthog. The pelican would be an easy target and very noticeable. The Warthog we would need to mod to allow the Shiva to fit"

Jorge walked on the soft ground over to a Warthog and got on the back. "Private Torres, over here" a marine wearing a respirator ran over. "Sir" Jorge grabbed the chaingun and ripped it off its stand then grabbed the ammo box. "Take these to the others, it will help" Jorge dripped them in front of Torres with a light bang.

The Private looked between the heavy chaingun and the 7ft tall SPARTAN and grabbed the ammo box and started dragging the gun across the fleshy ground.

Jorge ripped the stand out of the back and threw it on the ground. "Think it'll fit here?" Holding in a chuckle I nodded. "It might be tight" Jorge jumped off the Warthog, causing the frame to bounce and dust to shoot up.

"Russell," my comms sprang to life. "What is it, Douglas?" I entered the Warthog and drove to the Shiva. "We placed down two more Bison and now we have 20 minutes. I haven't been able to contact you till now, might want to hurry up" parking in front of the nuke I told Douglas the plan. "Wish I could be there, Boss, good luck" Douglas left the comms and Jorge and I got out of the Hog. "Let's get this on"

As we were lifting the heavy bomb - even for a SPARTAN - I radioed Jerome. "Start the assault immediately" Jerome's reply was short. "Yessir" I heard rumbling from the heavy vehicles moving. "Let's move," I told Jorge.

Jorge jumped into the passenger seat while I got into the driver. "All troops be notified, a large mass of hostiles are closing in. We have seven minutes before they're in range" WO Quinn said over the radio.

I slammed the drive lever forward and stepped on one of the six petals - what a stupid design - "Most of the hostiles are heading toward the convoy. While that happens we slip through and drop the bomb right at their doorstep. Then we book it" Jorge chuckled. "Quite the thought-out plan" I took a hard right and the nuke moved a little. "Given how I had such little time I say I did pretty good. Hold onto the Shiva" Jorge put his arm back and grabbed hold of it.

After some more driving, we were greeted by the sight of a giant monster with numerous tentacles jutting out of every surface and several destroyed grizzlies. "We'll be in danger soon, hop back there and get ready to lay waste" Jorge nodded and jumped atop the nuke with Etilka. "HE rounds loaded. Preparing to fire on your mark"

"Hold off till I say" I took a Covenant device out of one of my leg compartments and put it on the dash. The entire Warthog, Shiva and Jorge and I were cloaked. "Sir?" Jorge shot me an invisible glance. "It's something me and one of Topa's men cooked up. It won't last long" I drove into the least dense area but the tendrils eventually noticed us slightly

The tentacles moved in slowly, but it was too late. We were at the base of the Gravemind; it blotted out the sun from where we were standing - in midday. "Set the Shiva and drop it off!" Jorge did as I told and pushed the shiva off the Hog. Our invisibility wore off so Jorge started firing.

"Cutter, this is Russell, send the evac now!" A static-filled voice responded. "Understood. Good job, SPARTAN"

(A/N: Heyyyy there, been a minute. Now I could make an excuse but I won't, the reason there was such a big gap in uploads is that I was more focused on my new story (The Choices We Make (RWBY fanfic)) and I lost a lot of motivation. I love this story, but I lost a lot of drive for it. I'm not dropping this - not ever - it will just be slow uploads

Thanks for understanding)