Spartan 432 stared down at the small Earth like planet bellow from the observation deck of the UNSC Heart of Darkness. The ship had stumbled onto the planet because of a wrong turn in slip-space on the way back to defend Harvest against the new alien threat known simply as the Covenant.
The Spartan II was brought back to reality by the soft voice of a young woman, the captain of the Heart of Darkness, "So, any questions solider?" she asked. "we're in orbit over a small Earth like planet with half of Earth's gravity that supports fauna and flora life forms and possible intelligent life that has significantly inferior tech to our own, does that cover everything?" the Spartan replied. "Just about." the young woman started "But the gravity isn't just weaker its behaving like the laws of physics don't apply to it and we're not entirely sure about the inferior tech thing yet, or if there is even intelligent life some energy field is blocking scans."
"And that's why you want me to send down one of my Spartans?" the Spartan inquired
"Yep"
"And this gravity, why is it different?"
"Basically its gravity is half that of Earths but if you were to jump you would fall at the same speed."
"That…..Doesn't make any sense."
"No, No it doesn't."
"So what do you want my guy to do down there?" he asked.
"Scout a location for a base, observe local intelligent life if any and their technology and take samples of soil and flora all while not getting caught, we'll send the rest of your team down when we're setting up a base, so he'll be down there for about a day "
"Ok, how exactly is he going to get down to the planet in a pelican or drop pod without being caught before he even puts his foot on the ground?" the Spartan asked curiously
"Listen oh yea of little faith, you know that shattered moon I told you about that you also had a freak attack about?"
"Yes" the Spartan replied bluntly.
"Well it turns out that one of the first every slip-space capable ships had an accident with their slip-space drive and opened a portal in this planets moon about 300 years ago"
"Oh well...wow" was all the Spartan could bring himself to say.
"Yeah I know, but what we found was that the debris from the moon could, with a bit of explosive help head toward the planet, causing a meteor shower in which your Spartan could hide in when dropping down to the planet."
The Spartan stood there thinking for a second.
"Sounds good enough, when do you want him to head down to the pods?"
"I want you to have him picked and in the pods in twenty minutes, sound good?"
"Sure does, also why do we keep referring to him as… him, we all know it's gonna be junior."
"You mean Mythius?" the captain asked with a crack smile
"Yeah, he seems to prefer Spartan 148 for some reason."
"Why do you even call him that? He is the oldest after all."
"Can't even remember captain, started in boot camp."
"Ok, your dismissed Spartan." The captain said laughing at his response.
The Spartan nodded and chuckled as he put his olive green mark IV helmet before walking out of the room.
The captain continued laughing before stretching and clearing her throat and walking over to a microphone after turning it on she spoke into it saying "All hands this is captain Summers speaking prepare for operation knife in the dark."
Spartan 432, known to his squad as Chris or sarge walked down to the armoury, still slightly giddy from his talk with the captain, after finding the armoury door and stepping in the armoury he was greeted by the sight of 5 armour clad men with their helmets off cleaning their weapons or armour.
They Spartans all looked up upon sensing his arrival, "orange team ATTENTION!" Chris barked.
The Spartans quickly set their weapons to the side and walked up to their leader, not bothering with helmets
Their leader Chris was a tall man standing 7 foot 4 inches in armour with brown eyes and dark hair covering his whole head aside from this face which only had a fringe covering a half his fore head like his men he was 26 years old. He surveyed his men, he looked to his second in command, the man the team called junior despite his real name being Mythius, Spartan 148, he was the teams medic and sniper and had a covenant cloak module attached to his armour that he found on harvest, he too was 7 foot 4 with blue eyes and a beard covering his face with pencil shade hair, a defect of the augmentations. His hair that covered his head was longer than the regular buzz cut and was spiked at the front, he was seemed cold most of the time with a dull expressionless almost uninterested expression on his face even though he was perfectly happy, but on the rare occasion that he was really happy it was defiantly worth the wait.
The next man, the 3rd in command Spartan 080 known as red or Tom by his team was shorter only standing at 7 foot 2 in armour with blue eyes, he was the hot shot cqc specialist, his face was clean shaven and his hair was brown and slightly longer that juniors but still not nearly as long as Chris's hair.
His fourth in command was a giant standing at 8 foot tall in armour known by his team as Mike or titan was the teams heavy weapons specialist and looked like the commander only with much softer features and personality accompanied by green eyes, he was an incredibly gentle person who cared deeply for everyone around him and was slow to resort to violence as a solution. The two final men were twins both standing 7 foot 3 in armour with brown eyes, the first was Spartan 121 known as Gale or alpha by the team, he was the teams engineer and realist identifiable from his twin by his beard. His Twin, Spartan 122 known as rick or omega to the team, he was the teams gunner thus he was always in the gunner seat and cared deeply about tearing the enemy in half with whatever he could find, both men resembled their leader but with much more rough features.
"So, I guess you guys want an explanation?" Chris asked enthusiastically
"Um-well yeah" Tom replied
"We're currently hiding behind a huge piece of debris from the shattered moon of the habitable planet we accidently came across."
The team stood there processing the information as Chris filled them in on their situation.
"So now we're gonna send Junior down to scout but you'll be filled before your drop, the captain wants you down in pod 23 in 15 minutes so you'd better get ready." Chris finished
"Got it, how long will I be down there by myself?" Mythius asked
"Since its eight now and we hope to set up base tomorrow afternoon at around one, I'd say about seventeen hours."
"Piece of cake, I'll get going, see you guys tomorrow." Mythius said while putting on his helmet and attaching his sniper rifle to his back before walking out
"Bye Junior!" Chris shouted to his best friend
"Um sarge." Tom started
"Yeah Red?" Chris asked
"Does this mean the rest of us have to sit up here for the next 17 hours?"
"Uh-yeah, sorry."
There was a groan from the four remaining squad members.
Mythius climbed into the drop pod and spoke threw his suits comms.
"This is sierra 148 to the bridge in pod 23 currently ready for mission briefing do you copy bridge?"
"I hear you sir." A marine said back to him
"Your mission is to head down to the planet's surface, scout for a base location, survey local intelligent life if any and collect and test flora and soil samples. There is equipment to test the plant, soil and air to make sure it's safe for anyone who doesn't have a suit of power armour with an air tank and filter, there is also explosives for you to destroy your pod after you land. Just make sure to keep radio silence and not get caught and you'll be landing 2 clicks from the rest of the debris so if there are locals they won't come looking for you."
"Understood, will you be on the base when we set up?"
"Sir yes sir."
"Good I'll see you down there."
"Very good sir, we'll be starting the operation in 50 seconds, over and out."
'Shouldn't be too hard' Mythius thought.
He patiently sat watching the count down until…
3 2 1
The pod disconnected from the ship and shook as its thrusters fired, blasting it out into space.
Mythius looked out of the pod as the debris of the shattered moon thrusters ignited and took off after him, he looked at the control panel with his pods trajectory, calculated landing point and designated landing zone, he was right on track. In a few minutes the pod began to enter the atmosphere, an aura of superheated air surrounded the drop pod and its occupant.
Meanwhile in a small cottage in a large red forest-
A certain silver eyed, scythe wielding, huntress to be stared out into the orange sky
"Hey Yang, do you ever think there's life out there, in space?"
"Nope." Yang replied almost without thinking
"Hey girls! Come quick there's a meteor shower!" their father's voice shouted from the other side of the house.
Somewhere in the upper stratosphere-
Spartan 148 looked over the large red forest quickly approaching him, its leaves were a perfect crimson red and it stretched for miles he also noticed a small cottage miles away. It was beautiful. So beautiful in fact that he decided to take a screenshot from his helmet.
Noticing that the ground was much closer now he braced himself and waited for the airbrakes to deploy.
Shortly after he braced the air brakes activated for a few seconds before the pod hit the ground
Thud!
The Spartan looked out of the pod into the forest
'Looks a lot scarier from down here' he thought, not that he was scared, or even anything close to it.
He hit the ominous 'button' and the solid metal door blasted into a nearby tree knocking it over
He didn't have to do that, but it was much more fun.
Mythius strapped the assault rifle to his back, holstered the magnum and picked up his prized sniper rifle, with the words Mors Principium Est scratched onto it, which was Latin for 'Death Comes'.
He remembered a small cottage he seen from the pod, confirming that there was in fact intelligent life.
He was about to head for the cottage when a marker appeared on his HUD pointing him in the opposite direction, the suits system then notified him that the drop pod had detected a city there. 'Command never told me the pod had long range scanners installed, must have just forgot to tell me' he thought. In response to the newly learned information he did a 180 and headed for the objective marker.