Prologue
0100 Hours, January 23, 2579 (Military Calendar) /
Carrion-Xerses System, Pol-VII, Hervanoa City Outskirts
"All teams: enemy contact, dead ahead!"
Dan-397 glanced down at the motion sensor in the bottom-left corner of his HUD. Two red dots crept onto the far edge of the scanner. He ducked into cover behind a crumbling wall, waiting for his team to catch up. Minutes later, the rest of his squad came into view. Three friendlies blinked into existence on the tracker, as the Spartans jogged up to his position, two crouching opposite him behind another wall, and one next to him.
The four soldiers were perfectly still and silent in their AEGIS battle armour, the slim plates of titanium-A dulled down for maximum stealth capabilities. Dan shifted his grip on his MA5K Carbine, an optical scope and silencer affixed.
The twin red dots swelled above the normal infantry-size, signifying that they were vehicles, then blinked off the sensors.
Dan motioned to the Spartan directly opposite him, with Francis-412 printed on his left shoulder pauldron, curling his hand into a fist then sticking his thumb out at the space in between them: scout it out. Francis grabbed his SRS99F-S4 sniper rifle from the magnetic plate on his back and ever-so-slowly stuck the barrel and scope of the long weapon around the corner of the wall, just enough to see around the wall without being seen. It wasn't the first time Dan had wished they had been given fiber-optic cables.
After several tense seconds, Francis took his hand off the gun and raised it towards Dan, giving the all clear signal - three fingers raised, the thumb and forefinger making an "O" shape. Francis his gun over his shoulder. Dan gave the "go" signal, and the four Spartans ran out into the night.
They stopped at a junction. The buildings had slowly tapered out to leave the Spartans exposed in the boggy marshland on the outskirts of the city. They had made their way through the deserted city, encountering no life forms along the way, for the hostile alien war machine known collectively as the Covenant had wiped out most of the Carrion-Xerses System little under twenty years ago, leaving ghost towns - ghost planets - in it's wake.
For humanity, the war had been a battle on two fronts - the technologically superior and xenophobic alien faction the Covenant, and the closer-to-home but just as dangerous Rebel terrorist threat, a group that during the war was of great concern to the United Nations Space Command - UNSC - due to the fact that their defence forces were severely depleted and what little was left of them was focused entirely on the Covenant, leaving a major opening for the Rebel forces should they decide to take action.
Luckily for the UNSC, the Rebels soon realised the threat the Covenant posed, and were content to leave the UNSC alone until the war was over, one way or another.
The Spartans walked forward into the tall stalks of grass, weapons raised, view screens magnified and zoomed in on the horizon. The twin moons of Pol-VII shimmered in the black cloak of night.
They had been assigned to eliminate a rebel base. But not just any base, for the one they were to eliminate housed over seventeen HAVOK nuclear warheads, enough firepower to destroy a small moon. When the top brass at the Office of Naval Intelligence - ONI - found out about the dangerous stockpile, the first question was how did they get them in first place?
With the humans emerging victorious from the war, they had become complacent and had near enough forgotten about the Rebels. That, coupled with the black market and increasing activity of smugglers and pirates, had resulted in the Rebels becoming less of a rabble and a pain in the neck to a full-fledged army and an actual serious military threat to the UNSC.
The Human-Covenant war had been won because of one man - the Master Chief, John-117. Last of the legendary Spartan-II's and Humanity's last, best hope. He had destroyed the Covenant, and had given his life to Humanity. Now, Humanity needed him again.
But he was dead, or so it was presumed. When the Sangheili Arbiter Thel Vadam' had crash-landed on Earth in the front half of the UNSC frigate Forward Unto Dawn, and no Master Chief was present, it was safe to assume his demise. Colonel Ackerson's Spartan-III's were all KIA as well, with Teams Katana and Saber missing. And so the Spartan-IV programme began. They had been trained. They had been weighed, they had been measured. And now they were out there, fighting to make Humanity finally safe from any threat, human or otherwise.
"Spread out, Bravo formation," said Dan, his voice crackling over the COM. The Spartans assumed a diamond shape, with Dan at the front, Francis on his left, heavy-weapons expert Uri-457 on his right and explosives expert Janice-391 bringing up the rear. They were trudging through the mud, the way points on their HUDs leading them further into the ghostly countryside. But something didn't feel right, and Dan knew that everybody else in his team felt the same thing.
It was a nagging feeling, clawing away at the back of his mind. Like something was watching him, something behind him -
The two red dots returned at the edge of the scanner, now behind the Spartans. They had looped around. They picked up speed, and soon they came into view behind the group. The hum of antigravity technology grew louder.
The twin moons of Pol-VII were directly behind the two vehicles, silhouetting them against the bright white satellites. The two shapes, from the front, looked roughly triangular, but actually somewhat oval-shaped, with two wedges on either side. What appeared to be a missile turret - two boxes stacked on top of one another - swivelled slightly on top of the vehicles.
For a minute he panicked. The two vehicles were huge, easily able to glide right through the squad of Spartans. Dan forced himself to think straight: there was only one real answer. After the war there had been a lot of Covenant technology lying around. The UNSC, and humanity, had become a lot more advanced as a result. Many of the Covenant vehicles were scrapped, but several hundred were kept by the UNSC and, with a whole heap of luck, a huge Shadow-manufacturing plant had been captured by the UNSC just after the end of the war and a hefty fleet composed.
After months of toiling by ONI technicians, each Shadow had been converted into an olive-drab, gauss cannon-mounted UNSC workhorse - the Buffalo. And they had certainly proved their worth, ferrying troops, vehicles and supplies to and from "hot" zones without ever having to leave the ground more than a meter, laying mine fields and indeed crossing them with no danger at all, the hovering behemoths gliding straight over them.
If there was one thing the Rebels wanted just as much as defeating the utilitarian UNSC, it was their technology. And they had a knack for getting it, something High Command (HIGHCOM) could never get their head around.
"Francis, we've got Rebel Buffalos on our six," he said, nodding his head towards the two vehicles. Tell me what they've got."
The sniper crouched down to one knee, resting the stock of the sniper rifle on his shoulder. He zoomed in on his visual uplink, turning on the night-vision mode to get a look at the details.
The twin craft shimmered across the murky black field, slowly advancing towards them. Through the greenish tint on his scope Francis noted that the gauss cannons had indeed been replaced with a heavy compliment of coveted Argent missiles - devastatingly powerful weapons that could destroy even the most heavily armored tanks in a matter of seconds. The once olive drab armor plating was now a dull, worn brown color, and the armor itself was somewhat patched and riveted. Two flags fluttered in the breeze, each fixed to the top of an Argent missile rack. The wind dropped for a moment, and Francis saw that emblazoned upon the cloth was the emblem of the Reformed United Rebel Front - or RURF, a red flag with a man standing alone, clutching a gun. On closer inspection, the man was revealed to actually be many men and women, all clutching weapons and drawn on top of each other.
A lone Rebel sat in each of the the missile turrets, swivelling left and right, searching the horizon for movement. Several others were slumped in the troop bays, clutching their weapons to their chests, shivering from the cold which no Spartan felt due to the automated temperature control inside their AEGIS battle suits.
"Argent missile racks. I'd say about thirty missiles per Buffalo. And they'd have fitted it out with their own weapons, obviously." replied Francis.
"Obviously," muttered Dan. "What's their ETA on our position?"
"I'd say about five minutes, the way their going."
Dan looked closer at the Buffalos. Francis was right - they were travelling quite fast. But Hervanoa City - actually, Pol-VII itself - was under total Rebel control. That's why the Spartans had been sent here. Dan glanced up at the two Rebel manning the turret. Why were they rotating it about like that - almost frantically?
Whatever the reason, the two Buffalos were sure to be ferrying troops about. And commandeering a Rebel vehicle would be a lot less suspicious than sneaking up through the marshlands. Dan turned to Uri, and gave him a series of sharp hand signals, mimicking a rocket launcher and pounding a fist into his palm, then pointed at the Buffalo on the left.
Uri gave a terse nod, snatched the huge weapon from his back and levelled it to his shoulder, pushing the stock back into his collarbone. He peered through the sight, locking onto both targets, and then squeezed the trigger.
A jet of smoke blew out the back of the tube as the flaming rocket spiralled through the night, scorching the grass wherever it touched it. The rockets dissolved into tens of smaller rockets, that slammed into the Buffalo, exploding violently on impact. The front of the driver's canopy on the left Buffalo was torn off, shredding it's occupant to pieces with bits of shrapnel. A large chunk of metal slapped the gunner in the neck, shearing his head straight off.
The second Buffalo, however, had not been targeted by Uri - this was the vehicle the Spartans would take. Whether the occupants were lucky to not have been blasted into fleshy chunks was unclear, because they would now have to face the wrath of the Spartans. The gunner spun to face the lingering smoke trail, eyes wide with fear. He barked a frightened order in Hungarian.
"Viszont a spotlampa!"
Dan's translator kicked in: Turn the spotlights on!
"TARNKAPPE cloaks, now!" Dan barked. Each of the Spartans pulled out a hooded camouflage cloak from a storage compartment in the small of their back, setting them over their backs and flipping the hoods down over their heads, before sinking down into a prone position. The sensors in their armour recognised the cloaks, and an activation button popped up on the Spartans' Head-Up Displays. The neural interface implanted in the back of the Spartans' skulls registered concentrated thoughts of activating the cloaks, and so performed the action.
The TARNKAPPEs consisted of an incredibly lightweight material that had only recently been developed, which was covered in thousands of micro-cameras. When activated, these cameras bounced light off the wearer and the cloak assumed the appearance of whatever was supposed to be there. The cloaks were essentially a far more advanced version of 21st century "ghillie" suits.
The four prone Spartans melted into the marshy grassland, the cloaks mimicking their every movement with the swaying of the stalks and their every breath with the whisper of the wind, just as a blindingly bright light sliced through the night, causing the internal light filters in the Spartans' visors to flutter before finally switching to the darkest tint, which was barely adequate. Dan knew that the TARNKAPPEs weren't going to be good enough under light this bright, as to the Rebels it must look as if someone had cut four lumps out of their spotlight's beam. He pinged a red status light on his HUD, warning the others that they were going to have trouble very, very soon.
And soon enough, there was a bang, and a flaming missile streaking a gray smoke trail whizzed over Dan's head, literally inches away from his camouflage cloak. It exploded far behind him.
They had known the Spartans were coming - if they hadn't, deploying their contingents of troops to interecpt and eliminate whoever had fired the launcher would be a lot easier than wasting one of their precious missiles, for they were becoming harder and harder to find on the black market due to UNSC crackdowns. But a group of Rebels could be easily defeated by a squad of Spartans, however, a missile could reduce all of them to a smouldering crater in just one shot. That was why they were hurrying along and acting so jittery. Inside information - a snag.
That missile shot had been too close - they had to act now. Dan sent an amber status light - get ready. He waited until he got three green acknowledgement lights, before sending his own back, flashing it twice - now!
With a war cry, the four armored super soldiers leapt up out of the grass and charged forward, all guns blazing. The Rebel troops jumped up, piling out of the remaining Buffalo, caught off-guard by the tenacity of the enemy. Several didn't even have time to do that, bullets already ripping through their skulls and body armour.
Armor piercing rounds pinged and ricocheted off the near-impenetrable plates of the Spartans' AEGIS armor. A few bounced back, killing them with their own lead. The gunner in the undamaged Buffalo spun his turret round to face Dan, loosing off a missile.
Dan ducked and rolled to the side, trying to evade the flaming missile. It looped around, tracking his heat signature. Dan knew there was no way he could possibly outrun it, nor could he try and shoot it down - it was much too fast for his rifle. But he had to do something...
"Janice!" he yelled over the COM. "I need an EMP blast right now!"
"Sir?" Janice sounded confused. "Yes, sir!"
Dan understood. Janice had every right to question his orders. An Electro-Magnetic Pulse would cause every piece of technology in the blast-radius to fail.
The Spartans would be severely compromised - without their suits functioning, they would be little more than extra-strong, extra-fast humans, not the armored super-soldiers they were.
The EMP blast would not only destroy the missile, or at the very least the internal tracking mechanisms, but also bring their suit's shields down, allowing any flying shrapnel or enemy bullets to penetrate their AEGIS armor.
But without it, the Spartans would surely die.
Janice grabbed a small circular ball from the magnetic plate on her hip, palmed the activation button and threw it into the massing Rebels. An eery blue aura grew out from the ball, sapping all the electrical energy within it's medium-range radius.
The Rebels edged away, unsure of what it would do, and then yelled in panic as their COMs crackled uselessly. The spotlight blew out, shards of glass slicing faces open. The Buffalo stopped humming and dropped to the ground with a thunk as the missile whined, continuing on it's deadly path towards Dan. He rolled sideways, out of its way, and the missile did not turn.
Good, he thought. He snatched his helmet from his head and tossed it to the floor. It was useless to him now. The others did the same.
"Francis!" he barked, turning to the team's sniper. The missile dipped lower on it's inane path. "Bring that baby down!"
"Sir!" Francis replied, a scope already fixed to his sniper rifle and tracking the missile. He pumped the trigger once, twice, three times, as fast as the chamber would cycle, the white smoke trails slicing through the sanguine night.
Each shot was a hit, the high calibre bullets punching through the thick casing. The missile exploded in a ball of fire, scorching the tall stalks of grass.
Now he could concentrate on the battle.
Dan leapt into the air, spinning over a cluster of Rebels, his MA5K burping out a hail of bullets that eliminated the Rebels instantly. He landed softly on the floor and then dived under a burst of shredder rounds, rolling back up to slam his armored fist into the Rebel's face, smashing his nose and sending the bone splintering back through the skull and into the brain. The Rebel dropped dead without so much as a scream, his face devastated beyond recognition.
Dan spun around, leaping back into the air and swinging his boot out, sending the nearest Rebel flying into his comrades, completely unconscious. He glanced about at his team mates, all clustered around him, weapons blazing as they slaughtered the Rebels.
Dan's gun clicked, as did Janice's.
"I'm out," they said, dropping the weapons to the ground and pulling their M6S pistols from the magnetic plates on their thighs.
Dan calmly walked up the quivering Buffalo driver and put a round through his head. The corpse dropped out onto the grass.
Not one Rebel moved.
"All right, that's it." Dan said, holstering the pistol. "Uri, police the weapons. Janice - is that Buffalo servicable?"
Janice stepped up towards the troop-carrier and flipped open a hatch.
"The heavy armor plating on the engine box meant that the EMP only stalled it -" Janice looked up at Dan's stern gaze and sighed. "It's fine."
"Okay - Uri, get on that turret. Me and Janice will ride shotgun in the troop bay. Francis, get this baby up and running."
The Spartans snapped a crisp salute.
"Sir, yes sir!"
Dan returned their salute, and then turned towards the horizon, just as the Helios began it's daily cycle.
It was time they got going.