Ansela: Hello all, and welcome to my new fic. Sorry for not posting anything for so long, but someone (glares in brother's direction) crashed my computer and my father had to complete reset my system.
Timmus: It wasn't my fault...I swear. I just hit a few buttons by mistake.
Ansela: Nevermind. Anyway, things are working again and I should be updating semi-regularly. BTW...I haven't played HALO 2 as I don't have an X Box, so this is most probably an AU for Halo as well as Stargate.
HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO
The sleek black Prowler class stealthy ship slipped out of the shadow of the moon that it had been hiding behind as the two Covenant scout ships jumped into Slipspace. Despite the end of the Human-Covenant war nearly three years before, both sides still did regular reconnaissance throughout known space. The pilot of the Prowler was not in the Eridanus Secundus system for recon however; he was there to investigate his past.
Moving stealthily through the system's asteroid field, the ship moved towards the barren, glasslike surface of the second planet of the system. Once a thriving rural colony, the Covenant had found it, wiped out its meagre defences and then bombarded its surface with superheated plasma, boiling the oceans and rivers and turning the ground to glass in the intense heat. Not a square inch was left untouched. It was something that the Prowler's pilot had watched dozens of time from orbit; something that he had fought to prevent on dozens more. He had always hoped, somewhere deep inside, that his first home had escaped the brutal assault of the Covenant's religiously motivated war.
Fingers flying furiously over the control console of the Prowler, the lone pilot, known only as the Master Chief to most, set the black ship carefully down on the smooth surface of the planet. Records indicated these co-ordinates as the former site of Elysium City, his home for the first six years of his life. The Master Chief, SPARTAN-117, was one of 75 children taken at the age of six and put through intense military training and high-level education. By the age of fourteen the children, known as SPARTANs, were winning every battle scenario their instructors could think of, usually against crack troops armed with real weapons. At fourteen they were mentally and physically augmented to make them into supersoldiers; faster, smarter and stronger than any other human, with split-second reaction times, the ability to lift objects many times heavier than themselves and able to make complex reactions almost instantly. They were the only ones capable of handling the revolutionary MJOLNIR battle armour, which increased their reflexes and strength, and with these suits they were practically invincible against any human opponent.
But the Covenant weren't human. The difference races and advanced technology of the alien forces meant that even the thirty SPARTANs that survived the augmentation process were slowly whittled down to a handful of warriors. The methane breathing Grunts, the most common of the Covenant race, were barely a threat as they were natural cowards, spoiling many a Covenant ambush with their high pitched chatter. Only the ones assigned to special units were well armed and trained. Another common race were the bird-like Jackals, agile creatures who communicated in a series of barks, which were well used to using wrist mounted shield units to defend themselves. The field commanders of the Covenant were the Elites, tall and agile bipeds, well trained in the use of all Covenant weapons. All Elites were equipped with full body shields, except for those that used the camouflage units that enabled them to move around undetected. Elites were the bane of many human soldiers existence, with their ability to command any Covenant race and control the majority of Covenant vehicles, including the one man Ghost hovercraft, Banshee fighters and Wraith mortar tanks. Also within the Covenant hierarchy were the Hunters, tall armoured warriors, armed with a plasma mortar and a thick metallic shield. The combination of the armour and the shield made them almost impervious to small arms fire, except for a few small vulnerable spots. If they were enraged then they would charge into battle, raising the spines on their back and using their shields as extremely effective battering rams. Few challenged these behemoths; there were recorded instances where Hunter had walked straight over Grunts and Jackals without breaking their stride. The SPARTANs had the capability to kill them all, could halt a ground assault with just a few well placed teams, but they were eventually worn down to a handful of soldiers, with most of them being killed in the defence of the UNSC stronghold on the planet Reach, the planet where the majority of their early training had taken place.
Putting aside his contemplations of his past, the Master Chief began to shut down the engines and ships systems in preparation for exiting the craft.
"Master Chief? I'm detecting an unusual energy reading approaching our position." The voice of Cortana, the intelligent AI residing in the neural interface of his MJOLNIR battle suit, cut through his concentration and brought up the appropriate sensor readings for him to review in his HUD.
"What do you suggest?"
"Processing…" she paused for a second, and the Master Chief could almost visualise her standing with her arms crossed, number scrolling down the length of her body, "It's moving too fast for us to restart engines, lift off and attempt to outrun this anomaly in the air. I suggest diverting all power to shields and hoping that your extraordinary luck holds out." Before she'd finished talking, the Master Chief had already raised the shields and began to divert power away from the other systems. As he finished doing this he braced himself in his seat, resolving to ride out the approaching energy storm.
As the energy wave approached it became visible in the still air. Multicoloured bolts of electricity sparked in all directions, forming patterns in the air and fracturing the glassy ground as it approached the motionless Prowler. It swept over the former ONI scout ship as if it wasn't there, the lightning bolts somehow bypassing the shields and striking the matt-black hull. Realising this, Cortana used her remote link to the ship to divert the shield power to reinforcing the hull integrity instead, not wanting to see what would happen if the energy entered the ship and struck the Master Chief's MJOLNIR armour.
Eventually the storm passed, and the surface of Eridanus-2 was visible again. For several seconds neither the SPARTAN nor the AI could speak, stunned at what they could see from the Prowler's view port. Where the ground had once been barren glass, it was now covered in lush grass, bordering a thick forest of vibrant, healthy trees. Birds and insects flew around in the air, and the shadow of something larger passed through the pine forest.
"Cortana?"
"Scanning…we are still on Eridanus-2, but something has happened. There are traces of what could be temporal energy all around us, indicating that we may have been pulled backwards in time."
"Or forwards. Maybe planets that have been glassed recover if given enough time. We won't know until we find some clue as to when we are." He glared at the area visible through the viewscreen, though the gesture wasn't visible through his tinted faceplate. "Atmospheric and gravitational conditions?"
"The atmosphere is suitable for a human, although I advise that you don't break the suit's seal in case of unidentified toxins. Gravity is Earth normal. You should have no problems. What weapons are you going to take?"
"The M6D and the M90. That should be sufficient." The Master Chief strode over to the sealed locker beside the exit hatch and selected a pistol and shotgun from the weapons stowed within. He stuffed a couple of boxes of shotgun ammo and several pistol clips into his belt pouches before opening the hatch. Air rushed into the Prowler with a hiss, and the ramp began to slowly descend to the ground. He ignored the ramp, and jumped to the ground, landing silently despite his enormous weight. As he entered the forest, cradling his shotgun in his arms, Cortana sent the command back to the Prowler to seal itself back up and activate its camouflage shield. The stealth craft's outline flickered for a second before becoming fully invisible.
HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO:HALO
The Master Chief suppressed a flare of annoyance as he moved silently through the pine forest of Eridanus-2. It had been almost two hours since he'd left the Prowler, and there had been no sign of anything civilised ever existing on the planet, except for an ornately carved stone ring and pedestal twenty minutes behind him. He was travelling roughly north, planning to travel as far as he could in that direction before night fell. He paused as he heard sounds of movement close to his position, then ducked into a crouch, bringing his shotgun to a firing position as a human figure pounded through the trees nearby. Several more humans followed, weapons clutched tightly as they occasionally looked back in the direction that they'd just come from. Ignoring Cortana's protests, Master Chief followed them through the trees, easily keeping pace with the humans without being seen or heard. After a couple of minutes the twelve humans stopped, with two of them practically collapsing next to a small stream.
"Catch your breath guys, then we're moving again. We don't want Ba'al catching up to us. Not today anyway." The leader, a youngish male, scanned the forest behind them with his weapon ready, a large black man by his side. On the other side of the clearing were two others, a blonde woman and a man who could almost have been the leader's twin. Both were watching for anything moving in the forest that they would be heading into. When the woman looked in the Master Chief's direction he stood still, hoping that he was too far away for an unaltered human to see him in the gloom. To his relief, her eyes passed straight over him.
Within a couple of minutes the group was moving again, continuing at the same pace they were moving at before. The Master Chief once again kept pace with them from the trees, wondering what was chasing these humans on the seemingly deserted planet. Suddenly several figures stepped out from the trees ahead of the humans, causing the front two to stop suddenly and raise their weapons at the newcomers, dropping to their knees to allow those behind to take aim as well. The new arrivals seemed to be another group of humans; this time armed with ornate staffs instead of the assault rifles of the first group, and wearing what appeared to be ancient chain mail. The staffs were levelled menacingly at the first group, and sparks ran along their heads and they opened out slightly to reveal what looked like primitive plasma conducting coils to the Master Chief. Several more of these strangely armed humans appeared behind the others, and half of them spun to face this new threat, the appearance of which meant they were surrounded.
"Interesting…the armoured humans appear normal, but heat sensors reveal that they are carrying some kind of parasitical creature in an abdominal pouch, much like a marsupial." Cortana switched the helmet's view to show the data from his heat sensors, which revealed the creatures that she'd mentioned before.
"Are they Flood?" The Flood were parasitical creatures that the Master Chief had first encountered on the ring world called Halo, and would burrow into a host and take over their bodies from the inside out, leaving them a deformed shadow of their former selves. Humans and Elites that were taken over were often used to attack non-infected creatures that tried to resist the Flood's advance. Anything else either became food or was used to breed the next swarm of the balloon-like infection forms.
"Doubtful. Those…creatures do not appear to be deformed as Flood hosts tend to be. I think we're dealing with a different type of parasite." The two groups were still in their positions, and to the Master Chief it seemed like neither side wanted to start the bloodshed. Suddenly one of the aliens spun round as a twig cracked in the forest, and the humans took their chance. Opening fire at the aliens surrounding them, they knocked down the one who'd turned away and ran through the ones blocking their path. Two, armed only with pistols, ran straight for an unseen point in the forest, while the others followed, almost walking backwards as they fired on the aliens pursuing them. Bullets and energy bursts flew through the air as the two sides fought, until eventually the aliens were no longer a threat. The Master Chief followed the humans as they fled, letting his M90 shotgun hang from its sling as he switched to his M6D pistol.
More shots were heard from the distance, impacting on trees as they flew through the forest, and several crescent shaped aerial craft appeared over the forest. They swooped down; firing energy bolts from larger versions of the alien's weapons. The leader of the humans began to signal to his team, giving orders to spread out. The aerial bombardment continued as they did so, few of the shots coming close to the humans.
"Chief, I suggest that we get out of here…NOW!" Cortana screamed in his ear, the AI knowing the SPARTAN's tendency to get himself involved in all kinds of trouble. As usual he ignored her, as he tended to do when he was near a fight.
Suddenly a blast landed near the blonde woman, the shock of the impact forcing her off her feet and knocking her into a tree. The Master Chief spied several of the alien foot soldiers advancing through the trees towards her position as she struggled to get up, her leg bent at an unnatural angle. The aliens were closer to her than the other humans were, as she'd dropped back slightly at a signal from the human leader. Reacting without fully thinking, and ignoring Cortana's protests, the Master Chief sprinted towards her, his inhuman speed enabling him to reach her before either side and vanish back into the trees before anyone could react. Now, perhaps, he could find out what was going on.