Covenant Invasion of Earth Series 1: Barely...

Away from the confusion dynamics of doppelgangers, Jack, Connor, Flavio and Cameron had managed to infiltrate an average sized Covenant ship high above Plymouth. They had been in there for four hours.

Flavio had been unconscious for three…

“Well. This is going well,” Jack moaned quietly as they found a small respite within a kind of closet.

            “It was your idea,” Connor snapped.

            “I never expected you to go along with it,” Jack retorted. “This was basic suicide!”

            “It is suicide!” Connor exclaimed.

            “It will be if you two don’t shut up,” Cameron snarled, his shoulder aching. “We need to either find a way to the engine room or find a way off.”

            “I vote second option,” Jack decided. “We can’t set the ship to destroy itself while dragging Flav along behind us.”

            “Can we get out dragging him along?” Connor questioned.

            “We’re going to have to,” Cameron shrugged. “Which of you two are going to carry him?”

            “Why not you?” Connor pushed.

            “Because of the plasma wound,” Cameron pointed. “You know the attack that rendered blondie unconscious. I got shot.”

            “Okay then. I will,” Jack nodded. Connor quickly helped get Flavio onto Jack’s back before he exited the closet and took out the nearest aliens before gesturing for his friends to follow.

They exited quickly, Jack leaving one of his two weapons behind since he now lacked a spare hand. Cameron meanwhile wielded a makeshift sword in one hand and a rather large metal pole that could be used to put a dent in, well…anything.

Connor, however, preferred to keep his enemies closer to him and wielded two extremely sharp kitchen knifes. They didn’t help too much against the aliens’ armour.

Flipping over a weapons crate, Connor landed on an ape creature’s shoulders and thrust his knife into the eye holes of the beast’s helmet while Cameron meanwhile dealt with the smaller, much less lethal  methane breathing monsters.

            “Their numbers are increasing,” Jack noticed.

            “And they are beginning to become more aware,” Cameron noted holding onto his shoulder which was smouldering a unhealthy, radioactive green colour.

            “They want to ware us down slowly, that way by the time we go to escape we’ll be too weak to fight back against their strongest,” Connor guessed. “They want us to fight and kill. These aliens are simply lambs raised to a slaughter. They just don’t know it.”

            “They overestimate us,” Cameron laughed. “There is no way we’re making it to the escape pods.”

            “Banshee?” Jack suggested. “They’re closer, and possibly a lot less guarded. After all we are just kids with no experience with flying alien space craft.”

            “But, what about –” Cameron started to argue before catching Jack’s wink.

            “What they don’t know can’t hurt us,” Jack explained. “Especially that.”

            “Which way then boss?” Connor joked.

            “The way we already know,” Jack laughed before adding due to confused faces. “Through the walls and ventilation systems.”

            “Forgetting something,” Cameron pointed. “We can’t drag him through the vents.”

            “Then we take the long way around,” Jack decided.

And that is what they did. They fought and fought and fought, taking down squad after squad. But that took its toll, and gradually, they lost the ability to fight, the will to fight, and probably the worse of all, they lost all hope of achieving their goal of escape.

By the time they made it to the hangar…they were beaten: Cameron had lost all use of his left arm; Jack barely clung to Flavio and had lost his sword in the middle of a skirmish when his wrist was grabbed by a brute; Flavio was still unconscious, but barely so, the poor child was almost dead; and Connor. Poor, poor Connor, he now limped onwards with no feeling in his right foot, or knee, or stomach. Basically he had been hit with a number of plasma pistol and rifle rounds. He was barely walking by this point, regularly tripping, stumbling, falling; pretty much anything that would have made him an easy target.

On a somewhat brighter note, Jack’s theory of the hangar being pretty much empty was correct, albeit slightly too correct.

The hangar was almost completely de-voided of everything. There remained one Banshee, which had the general capacity of one.

            “We can’t go back now,” Cameron winced as his shoulder flared up for the five hundredth time in the last three minutes.

            “Go,” Jack ordered. “You are more valuable than all three of us if Tom can indeed fix our powers.”

            “He’s right. You are the strongest of everyone, but maybe Tom,” Connor agreed. “You are the one to escape back to the ground. You are the one who has the power to save us.”

            “Not yet I don’t,” Cameron warned. “And until then Jack is easily the better fighter.”

            “And if Tom does fix our powers? The best I can do is blind both teams and hope for the best!” Jack countered. “You are not that bad. You have managed to take out more enemies than both of us, even with your shoulder in its current state.”

            “Go,” Connor ordered as the door to the hangar opened. “We’ll be fine. We’re better to them alive.”

            “No,” Cameron decided as fifteen or so elites ran into the room prompting Jack to push Cameron into the Banshee.

The sudden force of Cameron landing in the small personal aircraft caused it to roll off of the ledge before falling through the hole in the bottom of the hangar causing Cameron to suddenly have to adjust to the ship and begin flying it away without being shot out of the sky by the anti-aircraft guns.

Meanwhile back on the ship, Connor nodded to Jack who took a leap of faith and jumped across from one platform to another nearby one, allowing him to escape to another entrance while Connor and Flavio were taken prisoner.

Cameron eventually managed shake his aerial pursuers and found a safe place to land. He looked up to see the alien ship suddenly just exploding in a mix of blue, purple and a little bit of yellow. A wave of dread and sorrow swept over him as the belief that all three of his teammates had just perished in one swift move.