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Kat didn’t know how she got here.
Her eyes told her she was at an icy field, deep underground. Snow covered everything, save for the metal fortress spanning wide across the valley. She was armored up, rifle in tow, no different from any day on a mission.
Except for one thing. She was all alone. She saw no Noble, no troopers, no techs, or civilians. Somehow she was stuck all by herself in this empty chasm.
Well, not completely by herself. The ominous hums of Phantoms steadily grew. The Covenant knew she was here.
This will be a lot to explain to the Commander or else he’s got a lot to explain to me, she mused grimly.
Best she could do was fight them off while she tried to contact somebody. Kat took stock of her lonely base. It seemed to be quite fortified. There were turrets, ammo crates, and cover provided in sandbags and Titanium-A walls. Maybe she could do this. I can do this, she thought.
The dropships landed and deployed a substantial amount of Grunts and Jackals. Annoying, but not much of an obstacle. As she picked them off one by one, Kat took the chance to examine the weapons stowed by the fortress’s wall. The first, a sniper rifle. Nngh. Kat would rather leave the sniping to Jun. The second, a M6. Ooh. This could be useful. Kat took the heavy weapon off the wall and hefted in her hands. It’s called a Spartan Laser for a reason, she snarked, as she finished off the stray mooks approaching.
A few minutes later, Kat was having second thoughts about it being useful. The next wave had been a pack of Elites and their Wraith. True, she’d been able to blast their tank before it could deal any damage, but the split-chins had rushed her rather than cower at their loss. Now she was pinned deep in the fortress, with just a pecking rifle and clumsy cannon, while the pack blasted eagerly with their concussion guns around the corner. She heard them jabbering with their deep voices, taunting her endlessly. They're worse than ODSTs in the mess hall, she groaned.
For what felt like ages, she waited until their hammering finally slowed. Maybe they were looking for a way to flank her. Tiptoeing forward with a glance ahead and another at the dark tunnel behind her, Kat cautiously tread until she could see an Elite straggler pacing around the entrance, then stuck the poor individual.
While the others scrambled wildly at the loss of their teammate, Kat dashed to the closest plasma pistol she could see and traded her M6 for it. What followed was a flurry of bashing them with overcharges and dodging their heavy blows. It must’ve been twenty seconds, but Kat felt like she’d been sprinting for twenty years. When it all ended, Kat let out a gasp and gulped down air, trying to calm down while her eyes darted everywhere scouring for more enemies.
She tried to be a little more responsible about weapons with the next wave. When Grunts and Jackals approached, she popped their heads and gathered their guns in a pile. Another Wraith dropped off, and she melted it with her laser. Those tanks couldn’t have been cheap. You flatter me, she thought cheekily, as if the Covenant could hear her. They weren’t so sassy. A scrawny Jackal screeched as it fired jagged needles at her. Kat charged it and smashed its skull in. “That’s for being so damn ugly!” she yelled. She didn’t know what provoked her to scream at this one. Something about its needle rifle seemed to really piss her off.
That’s when she saw them approaching. Hunters. The mammoth pair stomped menacingly through the ice. Kat reached for her laser, then remembered she’d emptied it on the Wraiths. Helpless, she retreated into the fortress, and they followed. Nothing to do but try to make some more distance. Kat strode down the dimly lit hallway leading to the exit. The door opened to the edge of the snowy cliffs. And waiting there a Hunter.
Kat shrieked and sprinted back up the hall. She prayed to whatever gods there were that Hunters couldn’t open doors.
The other one was still waiting by the main entrance. She could hear its rumbling groans. F**k.
She weighed her options, gathered her thoughts, made a bunch of equations in her head she tried to ignore how they didn’t add up to anything, then reached for a frag and threw it.
The Hunters growled and lumbered to it. It drew them both from the small exit, and Kat dashed for it.
It brought her out to the valley, sleet and frost on whistling wind blowing over the white tundra. Kat heard the snow crunching under her feet as she journeyed down the hills. Any time else it might’ve been calming, but Kat’s heart beat loud and hard, cramping her chest, ringing in her ears.
She didn’t know what her plan was out there. Kat drew out the Jackal’s needle rifle, pondering it in her hands. They had explosive properties on flesh. Maybe she could get the Hunters from behind, piercing their weak points.
After a few minutes, the Hunters realized she wasn’t cornered anymore, and turned to see Kat half a klick away, trying to aim the alien weapon. One charged down while the other lobbed plasma rockets down like rain. Kat aimed for their weak spots, but they weren’t that stupid, covering their faces with their shields and refusing to turn.
Kat groaned and looked for another escape. But there wasn’t any. Behind her, the valley dropped off into a cliff, and the Hunters stood between the only way out. Kat racked her brain, looking for any way, any way, any way out.
A vague image swam to the front of her mind. She remembered headshotting a Grunt and dropping its heavy plasma launcher in her gun pile. At the time she hadn’t thought it more than a free facelift, but now she dared to feel a glimmer of hope.
Kat startled the closest Hunter with another frag while she raced past it, pouring every ounce of will she could muster into her legs. The two cantankerous monsters hurled blast after blast after her, creating flurries around her of snow and green heat. How come they never had to worry about ammo?
At last she reached the blue cannon, and took cover by a crate. One by one she fired grenades and burst them piece by piece, worm by worm. When the last Hunter went down, the cannon was searing hot and empty. Kat dropped it and reached out an arm to the crate to steady herself. She grinned as sweat trickled down her face. I make it look easy.
Another murmur answered her, the menacing whir of Phantoms. Kat watched as they brought more troops to bear on her. Wraiths. Elite Generals. More Hunters.
By the time the Falcon showed up, Kat wouldn’t say a word to her retrievers. She just stepped aboard, wiped a smear of the purple blood coating her, then collapsed into a seat and slept.