Disclaimer: I own neither Halo nor Star Wars. Star Wars is the property of George Lucas and Halo belongs to . . . whoever it belongs to now. Microsoft? 343 Industries? I have no idea.
Word Count: 1,040
1500 HOURS, JANUARY 7, 2553 (MILITARY CALENDAR)\ONYX SHIELD WORLD
Three months had allowed Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Frederic-104 to closely observe his new command.
He and his fellow SPARTAN-IIs, Kelly and Linda, were handling the situation with the same quiet efficiency as always, though he sometimes felt he was going insane from boredom. Doctor Halsey (she was a civilian though; he could not actually give her orders, though she followed them all the same) and Chief Mendez had made complaints about how a highly advanced civilization could make an actual Dyson sphere, shunt it into an alternate dimension, and the build an artificial planet around it, but not have any coffee or Sweet Williams cigars—respectively—in an attempt at levity and then set about proving that, even if they were both middle-aged, they could pull their own weight. The two Beta Company SPARTANs, Tom and Lucy, seemed more or less at ease with the situation; Fred could only assume it was the result of serving most of their careers as Drill Instructors, rather than field operatives.
The three survivors of Team Saber had initially worried him. They had been distraught by the deaths of their comrades-in-arms longer than he thought they should have—though he conceded that the youngest SPARTANs had not yet had a chance to become inured to it; even as rigorous as the Twos' training had been, it had been unable to accomplish that. The Gammas had mostly composed themselves though, and never failed to carry out their assigned tasks. Only Ash remained morose. The III probably saw the deaths of his teammates as a failure on his part as a leader and would need to be convinced otherwise. He would talk to him at the next opportunity.
They had supplemented their supplies with whatever they could forage up or hunt down and determine to be edible with their extremely limited capabilities in that area—difficult, but far better than to risk poisoning that they could not treat. They had run out of ammunition for all of their heavy weapons back in Onyx's core and had had to divide the rounds—less than five hundred in all—from the MA5Ks and MA5Bs evenly amongst themselves. Beyond that, they had three frag grenades between the eight supersoldiers and a pair of Covenant Plasma Rifles that they could not recharge. Their armors were functioning optimally, though that would not last forever. As SPARTANs, they could operate with far less resources than they currently possessed, but no one particularly looked forward to that scenario; it had been drilled into them all to seize and maintain every possible advantage for as long as possible.
His train of thought shifted from who he was with to what they had done during incarceration in the Forerunner facility. In short, the answer was nothing. The first two months had dragged on as they trekked across the interior of the Micro Dyson Sphere. A month ago, the group had seen a Forerunner structure through the scope of Linda's rifle. Three more days of travel later, they had arrived. In the intervening time, Doctor Halsey had redoubled her efforts in a still largely fruitless quest to make any of the technology respond, as it had all apparently been locked down. Her only success had been to find an archived file of the Shield World's teleportation grid. They had the location of every structure in their prison, except the exit.
They all knew she was not happy with trying to leave. The SPARTANs had not enjoyed finding out that they had been misled; that they had been brought to Onyx not for a cache of technology, but to survive what the Doctor saw as a lost cause. Intellectually, Fred understood—could even agree with—her reasoning, but that did little to make the facts easier to accept. He was also surprised, and just a little suspicious, at how easily Halsey had acceded to his requests that she discover a way out. It was almost a certainty that she was not telling him something, he just could not think of what it could be.
The SPARTAN officer would have continued to reminisce, had not Mark—Halsey's bodyguard for the current rotation—almost shouted over the COM that the Doctor had found something. Everyone should have heard the exclamation (as the SPARTANs preferred to sleep in full armor since they considered the area hostile territory), so the Lieutenant made a beeline for Halsey's lab. Passing the room that they believed to have once been a mess hall and that they had converted into a combination barracks and armory; he met up with Linda, Tom, and Lucy, the latter two holstering their weapons as they went.
Upon arriving—last, he noted—he took what he hoped to be his last look at anyplace inside the Shield World. The room was twenty meters long, ten meters wide, and five meters high. A meter high, equally wide block, seamlessly merged with the walls and floor, took up the first half of either side of the room. A circular teleportation platform claimed the remaining half. Possessing walls a dull gray in color, it would not have looked out of place in one of the Office of Naval Intelligence's facilities. The differences in the aesthetic of the room and the rest of the compound had been precisely why the Doctor had chosen it: it was different, and builders had paid too much attention to detail for it to be a simple oversight. Fred returned to the task at hand when he realized Doctor Halsey was speaking:
"—the platform behind me is not, in fact, linked to the rest of the Shield World. Its receiving node appears to be in another star system altogether, and these," she gestured at the blocks, currently being used for benches by her audience, "I believe to be its power generators." At this, everyone jumped to their feet and made for the center of the room. "But," she continued, "what you all really desire is, yes, I can activate it, but you will be going in blind."
At this, the others turned to him, awaiting orders. Fred hesitated only a moment before coming to a decision.
"We're going through."