Tar woke suddenly to the sound of rending metal. At first she didn’t recognise where she was. The carefully ordered interfaces of the Phantom’s control dashboard were gone, replaced by a twisted forest of metal shards, jutting out as if trying to touch her. Blue energy sparked between the shards, feeding fires in all corners of the nose cone. “Vol!” Tar choked as acrid smoke wafted into her face. “Vol!” Carefully negotiating a long spike pressed against her exposed neck, she turned to look at her co-pilot.

Even through the smoke, Tar could see Vol had been impaled through the abdomen by another metal blade. His upper body was slumped over it, arms pointing to the floor. Tar let out an anguished roar and quickly slid out of her seat toward him. Her right arm caught on something jagged, but the sharp stab of pain barely registered. Tar carefully hoisted Vol’s body into an upright position and tilted his face toward her. “Prax Vol, can you hear me?” She tried one more time. No response. She growled and let his face go. Vol’s body slumped forward again.

Tar got up and rushed from the nose cone, choking from the toxic fumes as she grabbed her Storm Rifle from where it now lay on the gangway. Moving through to the troop bay, she heard someone shouting to her from outside. They must have been pulling on the side doors, because the mechanism was making a sharp screeching noise to try and keep them closed. Smoke hovered just above eye level and fingers of blue lightning played across the inside of the Phantom’s hull.

Tar hit the emergency manual door release and the screeching stopped. The door was still stuck though, so she rushed over and kicked the side door with the bottom of her foot. The entire section crashed to the floor; Tar raised her Storm Rifle to deal with whoever was on the other side. She was a little relieved to see a Spartan in reddish armour, but she didn’t show it. She walked down the ramp the side doors had created, smoke billowing out of the Phantom all around her, weapon raised.

“Warriors!” Tar bellowed, pointing. A gaggle of Brutes, mixed rank and armour, were charging through the mess of boxes toward them. She supposed they’d seen the Spartan isolated, making a lot of noise, and wanted to catch him unawares. Behind them, she spotted a whole load of URF spilling out of a nearby entrance to the Forerunner structure. They looked to be trying to cut them off. 

Tar rushed past the Spartan, firing a whole battery into the closest charging Brute until her rifle overheated. Turning it sideways, she savagely broke the rifle over his head, crumpling him to the floor. The next Brute was on her instantly, the shot from his Mauler raking her shields almost to breaking point. Tar forward rolled under the Brute’s outswung arm, got up behind him, activated her energy sword, turned and plunged it into his abdomen as he turned around.

Pistol rounds hit her shield from behind, breaking it. Tar smartly stepped back behind the impaled Brute, using her sword to keep him upright while turning him between her and the hail of bullets coming from the direction of the installation. “Shield recharging!” Tar shouted, kicking the dead Brute’s Mauler behind cover about ten metres in front of her. She grunted from the pain and effort of holding the Brute up as a bullet skimmed her exposed leg.

Moving them both forward a couple of metres, Tar peeked out and saw humans taking cover behind the same boxes she was aiming for. The remaining Brutes hadn’t committed yet, content to stay back and spray them with spikes and plasma. With her shields recharging now, she shouted “Transitioning! Cover me!” before sliding her sword out of the Brute and running for the boxes and the Mauler she’d kicked over. Humans and Brutes fired at her from the other side.