This is the barren and dusty area between MF-417 and the shipping facility.

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"Maybe it's an inside job" Tavish said into his radio to Aaron, though if anyone else could hear he didn't know "They think we're going to leave the moment we can't find anything so they're pushing the next attack back." This didn't mean he thought they should relax, they should still look out, but it could be a possibility.

"That's a possibility." Aaron said as he scanned the sky with the turret. "Just gotta figure out who it is and how they are doing it. Then maybe a little bit of a gem to figure out what they are doing with it."

"Miss Peacock in the library with a damned candlestick. Why do we have to figure this out dammit" Tavish muttered as he checked his sensors again and gave everything a quick once over "We're Spartans, we blow stuff up. If they wanted more style in it they should have hired a detective."

"Who says we arent going to blow up the person or persons doing it?" Aaron asked with a sigh as nothing had shown up yet.

"Because we can only guess and hope that we got it right" Tavish grumbled, not stopping his constant checks on the surroundings. Just because nothing was around didn't mean he suddenly wanted to find himself up to his nose in enemies. He wanted warning, he'd rather tedious but over quick than a long strenuous fight which left a lot of people behind.

"That's why we gotta make sure we get the right person or people." Aaron said as he tweaked a dial another centimeter. Then for the period of an eye blink there appeared a red blip on his sensors and then it was gone. "Whoa. Did just get anything on your sensors?"

"No. Eyes out everyone." Tavish tried to pull around in the vehicle, attempt a 360 turn in order to look in every direction himself. He didn't like trusting cameras too much, he'd rather look every which way himself and be sure. For some, the speed he was trying to do it might have made them dizzy. He was rather used to it.

"Everyone stop, we got a blip on our sensors and need to figure out what it is." Aaron said as he put his hand against the wall to brace himself during the turn. "Keep an eye out, Helljumpers, for any sign of ambush. He pushed his sensors power higher by diverting power from his weapon systems.

"Negative, keep moving, I don't want this convoy slowing down for anything" Tavish said clearly into the mike. Really? Stop and look what it was? Might be good for walking but these were cargo ships and the enemy knew that they would be there. The only thing that might take them by surprise was Tavish's own ship, so he didn't want to draw extra attention to the fact something might be different this time.

"Shaft, I'm the one in command, not you." Aaron said as he swiveled around to look up at Tavish. "I dont care what you do or say to all the other people under us, but you are never to undermine my command." He turned back around to reissue his stop command since the non-military units had moved forward.

Before he could issue any command there were several large electrial sounding explosions from the front of the convoy and the comm came alive as all vehicle skid to a stop. Out of the resounding chaos Aaron was able to pick out the voice of his ODST in the front. "Explosions at the front of the convoy. Looks like landmines sir, but I dont see anymore. I didnt see any to begin with through so they might be buried or they might be cloaked."

"Block the road, dont let any more of them through till we sweep this field." Aaron Couldnt see anything out of the viewport and the sensors where showing nothing past the ODST. In frustration he popped open the hatch and quickly climbed up to the top of the DC-AR. To his amazement the cars that had bone past the Marines were gone, no debris either. "What the hell happened to them?"

"Landmines would damage the cargo" Tavish said, ignoring the thing about undermining Aaron's command "They've been taken." He glowerd at the front of the line, where the first convoy vehicles had been. He swooped in, getting close to the area that they had occupied, but not going completely over it. "You getting anything?" he called into the mikes, hoping to get a responce back that wouldn't just be a waste of breath.

There wasnt much useful info being shared right now as several of the convoy drivers were starting to talk about turning around and going back. However, the ODST's in the front were able to share some info. "They moved past us then there were suddenly several bright flashes of light together with what sounded like electrical discharge and then they were gone."

Aaron managed his way back into the DC-AR and flopped into his seat. About that time his sensor grid started flashing with multiple dots ahead of them. "I got something now. Looks like several unknown objects, but they are giving off some sort of high energy signal."

"Aim a shot at one, the furthest possible from where the convoy should be" Tavish didn't fancy striking a convoy vehicle that was somehow disguised. "These might be teleportation mines, pressure sensative and teleport you out of here. I've seen them do it with vehicles before." He just really hoped it wasn't that, because if it was then they'd either have to leave the ship behind to make it a sneaky entrance, or they'd get captured. Or, perhaps, they were invisible enemy ships which would blow up quite nicely.

Since Aaron couldnt see it himself he had to rely solely on his targeting computers to make the shot. He selected the target signature and punched in the command. Almost immediately the turret on top spun around and fired a round causing the vehicle to rock back at the recoil. The round struck the target dead on, causing the dirt to fly into the air from the impact and then some more from the resulting small explosion as the target was destroyed. "Looks like an nonexplosive mine, buried. Bastards probably have a ton of the set up on the road ahead." He thought about it for a moment before adding. "They would have had to put these down recently since we didnt hit them on our way to the base, which means they knew the convoy was coming this way soon."

"So what should we do boss?" Tavish wasn't sure if these teleported you or something; if they just went boom there would... well at least be chunks left. They could take out all the mines and move the convoy along, protect with minimal loses, or they could see if they could get to the enemy base and blow holes in the walls until they surrendered or died.

"We can either go round or destroy them all. I think going round would be a better option." Aaron said as he scanned the areas next to the road. "Hopefully give us time if they know what has happened. If they show up to see whats wrong, a moving target is better then stationary."

"Ok, we're going to have to guide this ourselves, I don't think the convoy has sensors that can pick these up" Tavish muttered, eyes scanning the floor in front of the convoy as he twisted his own sensors, trying to pick up the same blips that Aaron had.

Aaron commed to the convoy and after a minute or two he finally got them calmed down. "Alright, once you are all done wiping the piss off your seats and undoing the knot in your panties, we have a plan. Follow our vehicle's tracks as we go around the trap. Go too far off our tracks and you may hit a mine and get vaporized."

But who would just... vaporise the convoys like this? And why did the convoy just keep rolling all the time? No one just hit the breaks or shouted? This couldn't be it. Tavish began to steer slowly, he had the mines on screen now "Ok, if you've got these mines in your sites, try and clear out some out. Lets get a clear path here."

Aaron set the turret to auto-target and it set to work on blowing some of the mines up to help make a wide path for the drivers behind them. "Hopefully we wont have anymore vehicles get taken." Suddenly a light on his board lit up and began flashing, this was accompanied by one of the screens switching to text and filling up with data. "My board just lit up, looks like we have an incoming aircraft or two heading this way. Unknown energy signature, unknown origin, unknown tech, but it looks to be up there with a heavy fighter craft or bomber in classification."

"Alright lads, every eye on that ship! See if you can't blow a hole the size of its entire chasis in the thing" Tavish grit his teeth, that meant manual dodging through these damned mines while the others started dog fighting. He didn't even get to kill anything himself.

The ODST turned their vehicles around and lined up to get a better shot off while Aaron hooked up to the computer to manually handle and fire the cannon. The Missile Warthog got a lock and fired a barrage in its direction causing the two aircraft to break their course. Then they started to fade and wave for a second or two before disappearing completely. "Anyone see 'em?" He asked as he scanned the skies for the two aircraft. He watched the missiles fly off into nothing with no explosions, seemed they had lost their lock.

"Ok, one guy keep clearing this path while the enemy are hiding" Tavish muttered, wishing he had a gun "The others keep an eye out." It felt so damn slow, just crawling along like this, trying to avoid mines while someone else did the shooting. "Make sure at least someone keeps an eye on that convoy, they might try targetting that and then fleeing when the job's done."

"Well, it looks like we just figured out how they are doing this. Now just have to figure out who." Aaron said as he scanned the sky. Suddenly his board lit up again, showing that there were weapons being charged.

Before a warning could be issued a bright green beam flew out of a random spot in the sky and struck the missile bearing Warthog square on the side. There was no sound this time except for one that had a strange similarity to a zipper being zipped up quickly, and the Warthog vanished. This beam was quickly followed by another beam striking one of the convoy vehicles with the same effect. This caused the remaining drivers to freak out and break formation, running in random directions hoping to avoid being targeted. Most were slowly picked off one by one. The Minigun Warthog continued firing into the air hoping to strike the aircraft by shear luck, and was accompanied by Aaron's cannon firing ahead of every beam.

"God DAMMIT!" Tavish yelled, wishing he had something to shoot. He glowered at the screens, then began to immediatley flood out the radio, trying to break out a frequency. All invisibilty things ran on frequencies, if he could find a good one and transmit it on the massive speakers it just might disrupt the invisibility enough to expose the enemy.

As Tavish ran through the frequencies there was a sudden response as the two aircraft became slightly visible for a split second before Tavish switched to another frequency. "GO BACK! GO BACK!" Aaron yelled as he took a shot at one of the aircraft before it faded again. This shot glanced off the tail end and caused it to start to smoke. "Smoke trail. Smoke trail. Anybody with a gun fire at the start of the smoke trail!" The ODST trained their gun on the source of the smoke trail and ricochet sparks could be seen all over the invisible target, till Aaron's cannon put a shell through it and sent it flaming off on the other side of the ridge. 

"That's it baby!" Tavish laughed, kicking the signal back a bit and wincing at the feedback he was creating. It was painful, but it was JUST enough that it would make the enemies visible. It's lucky they had him there, most didn't know about how easily the screens could be messed with. Though it was lucky that it was something that the amplifier could take it like this.

"Suck on this!" Aaron shouted as he fired round after round into the now visible aircraft. It took three rounds before it began to flee, however the fourth and fifth round punched through its armor and sent it spiraling to the ground before blowing up a few feet off the ground. "Round up the surviving convoy cars and get them to the shipping facility." He ordered the remaining ODST Warthog and it quickly set off to work. He turned to face up front at Tavish, "Good thinking on that radio trick, hope it continues to work incase we run into them again."

"It should, stuff like that is built in, and no one will be coming back to report that we actually managed to take the ships down" Tavish said, leaving the sound blasting for a good few seconds before turning it off. "They might get a slight change in frequency but we should be able to work this. I just... wonder why really."

"We need to go investigate the wreckage of the first one since I didnt see it detonate." Aaron said as he saw some of the convoy regrouping on his sensors. "The ODST's can handle the moron miners and get them to the shipping facility."

"Alright..." Tavish said, starting to steer his way through the mines towards the other crashed ship, the one not in pieces. "These guys have got some serious tech though, to keep the entire ship in camo. Most people can't manage to hold up a camoflage screen for very long without liquidating whatever's inside." They'd probably be dealing with some people with deep pockets.

Aaron was destroying the mines as the passed so some one wont accidentally run into one. "Tech has come a long way in more then one field, maybe someone was doing personal research on cloaking. Wouldnt surprise me at all."

"But cloaked ships AND disintergration mines?" Tavish pointed out "If it's only a few guys I applaud their ability to work with practically nothing on this hole of a planet, but seriously.... why would they do this if not financial gain?"

"Maybe some more religious nut-jobs?" Aaron said as the last mine went up. "I mean, the Covenant went genocidal for no reason and then went ape-shit crazy when they found those Halos."

"Pretty deep pockets" Tavish repeated to Aaron as he came within camera view of the wreck. There was still a few smoke trails in the air, but it wasn't incredibly destroyed; he just wondered who had done all of this.

Aaron looked at it through his scopes as they approached the wreckage. "Ok, I think this is close enough for now. If this thing goes up and we survive we would be walking back to civilization."

Tavish grunted slightly, stopping the ship and letting it settle down carefully onto the sand. "Alright, out we go then" he muttered, standing up from his seat and adjusting his armour "You think it'll go up? I mean it looks pretty stable for now." He was moving through his ship, trying to find Aaron and the door.

"If there's one thing I know, it's explosions." Aaron said as he swung open the hatch and stepped out into the unappealing terrain. "There could be an unignited fuel leak or undetonated ordnance. Or if the pilot survived the trip down, there might be a self-destruct system. The list goes on and on unfortuneatly, makes you long for and EOD unit right now."

Tavish snapped the door shut after them, frowning at the ship in the distance "Right... so there are a hundred reasons why it should blow up. By why when WE'RE in it exactly?" Dramatic effect, that was why, but still Tavish wanted there to be a chance he could find a pilot alive and rip his nose out of his urethra.

Aaron walked up to the ship with his weapon at the ready, just incase something popped up out and attacked. The ship was pretty tore up and several pieces were scattered about everywhere with a few fires here and there, but nothing that appeared explosive at the moment. "Do you see a cockpit?" He asked as he looked it over because it appeared to be non-existant.

"Maybe it's bot controlled. Finally someone with some common sense. Also explains how they'd be able to cloak for long times without liquidating whoever's inside." Tavish muttered, pulling out one of his own threshers and rolling the barrel inside. He looked around slowly, every spark and darngling light being spotted by his keen eyes.

Aaron continued looking over the ship, shaking his head. "This is definitely something that we need to have picked up. Got to be some tech here that we could use, like that gun thing." As he got to the other side there was a small hatch that suddenly popped open and this purple ooze came tumbling out onto the ground where it rolled around, smoking and bubbling. "Son-of-a-bitch! What the hell is that?!" he said as he swung his gun around and trained it on the ooze.

"Huh..." Tavish picked up a piece of wreckage and dipped it into the goo, trailing it around slowly "Well... it might be that when we punctured the hell the sudden lack of intergral pressure caused a major collapse in the balance cores and this is the pilot... or it's the fuel that this stuff runs on." He poked the pile of goo again with the metal piece "We can always check by getting a good smell..."

Suddenly the goo latched onto the wreckage that Tavish was holding and bolted towards Tavish, covering three fourths of the distance in about a second. As it charged up it let out this small, nearly inaudible screech.

It probably hadn't expected to be hit by half a wall. Never startle a Spartan, specially not Tavish. He'd been clinging onto a wall as he'd leant down close, now he still was, but the wall was on top of the slime stuff. "Ok, that's new" he said, trying to keep the mild panic that had just burst through him sound in his voice.

Aaron's reaction was almost as bad as Tavish's as his gun barrels were now spun up and ready to unleash lead ridden hell upon the ooze. "Whatever it is, it doesnt like being prodded."

"Yeah... well..." Tavish muttered, gazing down at it and taking a step back "Ugh..." He held a piece of metal in his hand, quite happy to bludgeon it to death "You want to lift it?" He held his thresher in one hand, as well as the piece of metal "I've got you covered."

"Oh thanks, your too kind." Aaron muttered as he stepped forward. He used the end of his gun to flip the wall over and stepped back quickly. The ooze was still there on the ground and was shifting around slightly, little parts of it began to flash at different speeds and colors. "Something tells me we should be worried."

"Way ahead of you" Tavish admitted, dropping the piece of metal he was holding and imediatley grabbing onto another panel wall to drop of the thing it if started to get violent. "Alright" he said slowly "How about... I pump one round into it? See how it reacts?" Try however hard he wanted, he was still a Spartan, and right now his brain was going "shoot it."

"We should try to capture it and take it back to base...but what the hell, why not." Aaron said as he readied himself. "Pump a round into it, and if it comes at you pump a few more rounds into it."

"How about... you get a jar first. I shoot it. If it goes for me, catch it." Tavish didn't fancy shooting at it until it had glued to his face. Still he had his gun trained on it, and the wall in his other hand, he was preparing for all eventualties.

"I dont have a container on me." Aaron said, silently cursing himself for his shortsightedness. "I filled that compartment with explosives."

"screw it!" Tavish yelled as he pumped burning hot round into the goo, tensing his arm and getting ready to drop the wall on the goo if it so much as twitched in his direction. What the hell was this stuff?

The goo stopped flashing the second the round hit it and it began to writhe around on the round. Shortly after it was shot it took off away from the two Spartans.

Aaron didnt want it to get away, so as it fled he opened fire and tried to rip it into tiny goo bits. The thing crested a hill and vanished behind it before he could finish it off.

Tavish cocked his arm, throwing the wall as hard as he could towards the hill. "GET BACK HERE YOU DAMN COWARD!" he yelled, ignoring the fact he'd just been cowering here with his gun in his hand "Gah... what the hell was that boss?"

"I wish I could say, Shaft." Aaron said as he rubbed the side of his helmet. "Could be a new life form, or some sort of advanced tech."

"A new life form with the technology to cloak a ship?" Tavish muttered softly, glaring across at the wall buried in the sand "Tech maybe. Still, that behaved weird." He sighed and looked around at the rest of the ship "Still, we could pick through this stuff. See if there's anything else to explain what's been going on here."

"I dont mean, like, a newly created life form. I mean a previously undiscovered life form." Aaron said as he looked over the ship too. "Let's hope it's not something we are going to have to worry about thoroughly, and its just something on this...Whats that noise."

There came a sound that started out small and faint, but had gradually become louder. As the Spartans looked towards the noise they could see another one of the flying ships coming for them. Before they were able to bring it down or get to cover, it fired its beam weapon and hit both of them. The world went dark as they blacked out.

Ortega - The Scarlet Sanctuary (Lower Levels)

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- Halo C.E. RPG