I uploaded this a long time ago and did not notice all the spacing was lost... and I uploaded a WALL TEXT OF DOOM so... FIXED :)
This is an idea, What if Master CHief did not arrive on halo alone? What if he had Noble Six and Linda with him?
645 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
UNSCPillar of Autumn , Planet Reach, MAC defense platform near Ship Graveyard
"Good to see you Spartan. Halsey assured me I could count on you" captain Keyes said, as he received the package.
"Not just me sir" responded Noble Six with a sad tone.
"They'll be remembered" Keyes assured, gently grabbing Six's shoulder.
Keyes turned his sight to the horizon, where he spotted incoming covenant cruisers.
"Cruiser!" Keyes screamed over the COM "Adjusting heading for the Autumn" Keyes continued
The other pelican took off heading for the autumn as keyes contacted Emile
"Noble four, I need fire on that cruiser or we're not getting out of here! Do you copy?" Keyes demanded
"You'll have your window sir" Responded Emile over the radio
Keyes then boarded his pelican again, getting ready for departure to the autumn
"Bridge, this is the Captain. We have the Package. Returning to the Autumn. Over."
"Copy that" Answered a marine to keyes over the radio.
Just as Keyes' pelican was getting ready to take off, a covenant phantom arrived and attacked the second bird, making keyes' pelican turbulent and dropping the burning remains of the other pelican on the platform, forcing NOBLE SIX to dodge fast. Amid the chaos, the Phantom dropped two elites with swords on Emile's position, but he just noticed one. Emile quickly loaded his shotgun and shot the first elite two times, killing him.
"Who's next!" Screamed a victorious Emile.
Noble six quickly turned around to Emile's position and he noticed the other elite swinging at Emile, he shot a round of his Battle Riffle, but he missed. However, the elite noticed Six and tried to dodge, making Emile aware of his presence. "Oh no you don't!" Emile shot two quick rounds of his shotgun at the elite, killing him instantly
Keyes' pelican flew to the platform again, to extract noble six
"Lieutenant!" Screamed a marine aboard the pelican "Get aboard! We gotta get the hell outta here!"
"Negative" Answered Six "We have the gun. Good luck sir" Continued six
"Six! like I needed your help, I got your ass, now get the hell outta here, ASAP! I can handle it form here!"
Six stood on the platform, hesitant, not wanting to leave Emile behind
Keyes could imagine the feelings of the spartan that was in front of him, he had lost all of his comrades during the fall of reach, he could understand why he wanted to stay and he respected that. But he knew how valuable each Spartan was in the war, he couldn't afford to loose another one.
"Lieutenant! Jump, now, that's an order! We're outta time!"
Six turned around to see all the incoming covenant cruisers, and then he jumped on the pelican
0637 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) / Epsilon Eridani System, Reach Station Gamma
"Master Chief," Linda said, "I'm picking up thousands of signals on the motion tracker, inbound from all directions. The entire station is crawling."
The Master Chief opened the Pelican's back hatch. "Get in," he said. Blue-One and the Marines piled inside.
The Marines did a double take at Blue-One and the Master Chief in their MJOLNIR armor.
The Master Chief turned the Pelican to face the Circumference . He sighted the autocannon on the ship's forward viewports—and opened fire. Thousands of rounds streamed from the chain-gun and cracked through the thick, transparent windows. He followed up with an Anvil-II missile. It blasted through the prow and peeled the craft open.
"Take the controls," he told Blue-One.
He slipped out the side hatch and jumped to the Circumference . The inside of the ship's cockpit was scrap metal. He accessed the computer panel in the floor deck and located the NAV database core. It was a cube of memory crystal the size of his thumb. Such a tiny thing to cause so much trouble.
He shot it three times with his assault rifle. It shattered.
"Mission completed," he said. One small victory in all this mess. The Covenant wouldn't find Earth . . . today.
He exited the Circumference . Jackals appeared on the level above them in the docking bay. His motion tracker blinked with solid contacts.
He jumped back into the Pelican, strapped himself in the pilot's chair, and turned the ship to face the outer doors.
"Blue-One, signal the dockmaster AI to open the outer bay doors."
"Signal sent," she said. "No response, sir." She looked around. "There's a manual release by the outer door." She moved toward the aft hatch. "I'll get this one, sir. It's my turn. Cover me."
"Roger, Blue-One. Keep your head down. I'll draw their fire." She launched herself out the back hatch.
The Master Chief tapped the Pelican's thrusters and the ship rose higher in the bay—up to the second level. The upper decks were the mechanic bays; the area was littered with ships that were partially disassembled in various stages of repair. It was also where a hundred Jackals and a handful of Elite warriors were waiting for him.
They opened fire. Plasma bolts scored the hull of the Pelican.
The Master Chief fired the chain-gun and let loose a salvo of missiles. Alien shields blazed and failed. Blue and green blood splashed and flash-froze in the icy vacuum.
He hit the top thrusters and dropped down to the lower level—slammed the ship back into a berth for cover.
Blue-One crouched by the manual release. The outer doors eased open, revealing the night and stars beyond. "You're clear for exit, Master Chief. We're home free—"
A new contact on the Pelican's targeting display appeared—right behind Linda. He had towarn her—
Blue-One managed to see the motion tracker showing an enemy behind her, she had to be fast. She docked but a bolt of plasma managed to hit her from the upper deck, she jumped and dodged anotherone but her shields were already depleted.
"No!" the Master Chief said. He felt that plasma bolt as if it had hit him, too.
He moved the Pelican to cover her. Plasma struck the hull, melting its outer skin.
"Linda! Get inside! Now" He ordered
Blue-One jumped on the pelican, The Master Chief sealed the hatch, ignited the engines and pushed them to full thrust—rocketing into space. He was relieved to see Linda intact.
"Master Chief, come in." Captain Keyes voice sounded over the COM channel. "The Pillar of Autumn will be in rendezvous position in one minute."
"We're ready, Captain," he answered.
The instant the Master Chief docked the Pelican to the Pillar of Autumn , he felt the cruiser accelerate.
The med techs wanted to check him and Linda out as well, but he declined and took the elevator to the bridge to report to Captain Keyes.
As he rode inside the lift he felt the ship accelerate port—then starboard. Evasive maneuvers.
The elevator doors parted and the Master Chief and Linda stepped onto the bridge.
Master Chief was surprised when he spotted a Spartan standing next to Keyes. The armor was definitely a Mjolnir, but he couldn't recognize the Spartan, he was definitely not one of his Spartans.
"Master Chief, I would like to introduce you to the lieutenant Noble Six, he is a Spartan, though he comes form a wave you might not be familiar with. He managed to extract a part of Cortana safely from Reach and helped us evacuate the planet.
Six saluted Master Chief, The Chief saluted in response.
"Another wave, sir? I.."
"I understand you must have questions about that Master Chief but this is not the time"
"Sir!" Answered the Chief
"Reporting for debriefing, sir."
"The NAV database was destroyed?" he asked. "Sir, I would not have left if my mission was incomplete."
"Of course, Master Chief. Very good," Captain Keyes replied.
"Sir, may I ask that you scan for active FOF tags in the region?" The Master Chief glanced at the main view screen—saw scattered fights between Covenant and UNSC warships in the distance. "I lost a man on the station. He may be floating out there . . . somewhere."
"Lieutenant Hall?" the Captain asked. "Scanning," she said. After a moment she looked back and shook her head.
"I see.."; the Master Chief replied. There could be worse deaths . . . but not for one of his Spartans. Floating helpless. Slowly suffocating and freezing—losing to an enemy that could not be fought.
"Sir," the Master Chief said, "when will the Pillar of Autumn rendezvous with my planetside team?"
Captain Keyes turned from the Master Chief and stared out into space. "We won't be picking them up," he said quietly. "They were overrun by Covenant forces. They never made orbit. We've lost contact with them."
The Master Chief took a step closer. "Then I would like permission to take a dropship and retrieve them, sir."
"Request denied, Master Chief. We still have a mission to perform. And we cannot remain in this system much longer. Lieutenant Dominique, aft camera on the main screen."
Covenant vessels swarmed though the Reach System in five-ship crescent formations. The remaining UNSC ships fled before them . . . those that could still move. Those ships too damaged to outrun the Covenant were blasted with plasma and laser fire.
The Covenant had won this battle. They were mopping up before they glassed the planet; the Master Chief had seen this happen in a dozen campaigns. This time was different, however.
This time the Covenant was glassing a planet . . . with his people still on it. He tried to think of a way to stop them . . . to save his teammates. He couldn't.
The Captain turned and strode to the Master Chief, stood by his side. "Dr. Halsey's mission," he said, "is more important than ever now. It may be the only chance left for Earth. We have to focus on that goal."
Three dozen Covenant craft moved toward Gamma station and the now inert orbital defense platforms.
They bombarded the installations—the mightiest weapons in the UNSC arsenal—with plasma. The guns melted, and boiled away.
The Master Chief clenched his hands into fists. The Captain was correct: there was nothing to do now except complete the mission they had set out to do.
Captain Keyes barked, "Ensign Lovell, give me our best acceleration. I want to enter Slipstream space as soon as possible."
Cortana said, "Excuse me, Captain. Six covenant frigates are inbound on an intercept course."
"Continue evasive maneuvers, Cortana. Prepare the Slipspace generators and get me an appropriate randomized exit vector."
"Aye, sir." Navigation symbols flashed along the length of her holographic body. The Master Chief continued to watch as the Covenant ships closed in on them.
Master Chief turned around and took a look at Linda, and at the foreign Spartan, this 'Noble Six'. It could definitely be worse, at least he was not the only Spartan left. But not even his curiosity for Noble Six could fight the grief he felt for his Spartans. But he still had a mission: victory against the Covenant—and vengeance for his fallen comrades.
The Master Chief glanced at her translucent body. She looked vaguely like a younger Dr. Halsey. Tiny dots, ones, and zeros slid over her torso, arms, and legs. Her thoughts were literally worn on her sleeve; the symbols also appeared on Ensign Lovell's NAV station.
He cocked his head as the symbols and numbers scrolled across the NAV console.
The representations of Slipspace vectors and velocity curves twisted across the screen—tantalizingly familiar. He'd seen them somewhere before—but he could not make the connection.
"Something on your mind, Master Chief?" Cortana asked. "Those symbols . . . I thought I had seen them somewhere before. It's nothing." Cortana got a far off look in her eyes. The marks cycling on her hologram shifted and rearranged.
The Master Chief saw the Covenant fleet gathered around planet Reach. They swarmed and circled like sharks. The first of their plasma bombardments launched toward the surface. Clouds in the fire's path boiled away.
"Jump to Slipspace, Ensign Lovell," the Captain said. "Get us the hell out of here."
John remembered Chief Mendez's words—that they had to live and fight another day .
647 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
UNSCPillar of Autumn , Epsilon Eridani System's edge
Cortana fired thePillar of Autumn 's autocannons—targeting a dozen Seraph fighters harassing them as they were accelerated out of the system. Seven Covenant frigates were now locked into the pursuit. She dodged a volley of pulse laser fire, using the ventral emergency thrusters.
She pushed the damaged secondary reactor to critical levels. They had to build up more speed before activating the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight generators or the jump to Slipstream space would fail.
She rechecked her calculations. Under the Cole Protocol, they would be jumping away from Earth . . . but it would not be a totally random heading.
The Master Chief had been right when he said that he recognized the shorthand navigation symbols on the NAV display.
Cortana accessed the Spartans' mission logs. She sifted through the data, and filed it into a secondary long-term storage buffer. When she reviewed the database of his mission reports, Cortana learned that Spartan 117had seen something similar on the Covenant vessel he had boarded in 2525. And again—the symbols almost looked like those on the rock he had extracted from Covenant forces on Sigma Octanus IV. ONI reports on the symbols found in the anomalous rock had defied cryptoanalysis.
Keyes' order to plot a navigation route sparked a connection between this data; she accessed the alien symbols, and rather than compare them with alphabets or hieroglyphics, compared them to star formations.
There were some startling similarities—along with a number of differences. Cortana reanalyzed the symbols and accounted for thousands of years of stellar drift.
A tenth of a second later she had a close match on her charts—86.2 percent.
Interesting. Perhaps the markings in the rock recovered on Sigma Octanus IV were navigation symbols, albeit highly unusual and stylized ones—mathematical symbols as artistic and elegant as Chinese calligraphy.
What was there that the Covenant wanted so badly that they had launched a full offensive against Sigma Octanus IV? Whatever it was . . . Cortana was interested, too.
She compared the new NAV coordinates with her directives and was pleased with what she saw; the new course complied with the Cole Protocol. Good.
The Covenant frigates fired their plasma again. Seven bolts of fire streaked toward thePillar of Autumn . She dumped the coordinates to the NAV controls and stored the logic path that led to her deduction in
her high-security buffer.
"Approaching saturation velocity," she told Captain Keyes. "Powering Shaw-Fujikawa Translight generators. New course available."
The Covenant frigates aligned with their outbound vector. They were going to try to follow thePillar of Autumn through Slipspace. Damn.
The Shaw-Fujikawa Translight generators tore a hole in normal space. Light boiled around thePillar of Autumn and she vanished.
Cortana had plenty of time to think on the journey. Most of the crew were frozen in cryo for the trip. Some of the engineers had elected to try to repair the main reactor. A futile gesture . . . but she lent them a few cycles to try to rebuild the convection inductor.
Had Dr. Halsey been on Reach when it fell to the Covenant? Cortana felt a pang of regret for her creator. Maybe she had gotten away. The probability was low . . . but the doctor was a survivor.
Cortana ran a self-diagnostic. Her Alpha-level commands were intact. She had not jeopardized her primary mission by following this vector. There were, unfortunately, sure to be Covenant ships when they arrived . . . wherever they arrived.
The Covenant had followed them into Slipstream space. And they had always been faster and more accurate than UNSC navigators in the elusive dimension.
Captain Keyes and the Master Chief would get their chance to disable and capture one of those vessels.
Their "luck" had so far defied all probability and statistical variations. She hoped their defiance of the odds continued.
"Captain Keyes? Wake up, sir," Cortana said. "We will enter normal space in three hours."
Captain Keyes sat up in the cryo tube. He licked his lips and gagged. "I hate that stuff."
"The inhalant surfactant is highly nutritious, sir. Please regurgitate and swallow the protein complex."
Captain Keyes swung his legs out of the tube. He coughed and spat the mucus onto the deck. "You wouldn't say that, Cortana, if you ever tasted this stuff. Ship status?"
"Reactor two has been fully repaired," she replied. "Reactors one and three are inoperable. That gives us twenty percent power. Archer missile pods I and J rows serviceable. Autocannon ammunition at ten percent. Our two remaining Shiva warheads are intact." She paused and double-checked the MAC gun. "Magnetic Accelerator Gun's capacitors depolarized. We cannot fire the system, sir."
"More good news," he grumbled. "Continue."
"Hull breaches patched—but the majority of decks eleven, twelve, and thirteen are destroyed—that includes the Spartans' weapons locker."
"Are there any infantry weapons left?" Keyes asked. "We may need to repel boarders."
"Yes, Captain. A substantial number of standard Marine infantry weapons survived the engagement. Would you like an inventory?"
"Later. What about the crew?"
"All crew accounted for. Spartan 117, Spartan and Spartan are in cryo sleep with the Marine and security personnel. Waking bridge officers and all essential personnel."
"And the Covenant?"
"Very well. I'll be on the bridge in ten minutes." He eased out of the tube. "I'm getting too damn old to be frozen and shot through space at light speed," he muttered.
Cortana checked the status of the waking crew. There was a minor flutter in Lieutenant Dominique's heart, which she corrected. Otherwise, status normal.
The Captain and crew assembled on the bridge. They waited.
"Five minutes until normal space, sir," Cortana announced.
She knew they could see the countdown timer, but Cortana noticed that the crew responded well to her calm voice in stressful situations. Their reaction times generally improved by as much as 15 percent— give or take. Sometimes, human imperfection made calculations maddeningly imprecise.
She ran another check on all intact systems. Th ePillar of Autumn had taken a tremendous beating at Reach. It was a wonder it was still in one piece.
"Entering normal space in thirty seconds," she informed Captain Keyes.
"Shut down all systems, Cortana. I want us to be dark when we hit normal space. If the Covenant did follow us—maybe we can hide."
"Aye, sir. Running dark."
The view screen filed with green light; smears of stars came into focus. A purple-hued gas giant filled a third of the screen.
Captain Keyes said, "Fire thrusters to position us in orbit around the planet, Ensign Lovell." "Aye, sir," he replied. The Pillar of Autumn glided around the gravity well of the moon. Cortana detected a radar echo ahead, an object hidden in the shadow.
As the ship rounded the dark side of the gas giant, the object came into full view. It was a ring-shaped structure . . . gigantic.
"Cortana," Captain Keyes whispered. "What is that?" Cortana noted a sudden spike in pulse and respiration among the bridge crew . . . particularly the Captain.
The object spun serenely in the heavens. The outer surface was gray metal, reflecting the brilliant starlight. From this distance, the surface of the object seemed to be engraved with deep, ornate
geometric patterns. "Could this be some kind of naturally occurring phenomenon?" Dominique asked. "Unknown," Cortana replied.
She activated the ship's long-range detection gear. Cortana's holo image frowned. The Pillar of Autumn 's scanning systems were fine for combat . . . but for this kind of analysis it was like using stone tools. She diverted processing power away from ancillary systems and channeled it into the task.
Figures scrolled across the sensor displays.
"The ring is ten thousand kilometers in diameter," Cortana announced, "and twenty-two point three kilometers thick. Spectroscopic analysis is inconclusive, but patterns do not match any known Covenant materials, sir."
She paused and aimed the long-range camera array at the ring. A moment later a close-up of the object snapped into focus.
Keyes let out a low whistle.
The inner surface was a mosaic of greens, blues, and browns—trackless desert; jungles; glaciers and vast oceans. Streaks of white clouds cast deep shadows upon the terrain. The ring rotated and brought a new feature into view—a tremendous hurricane forming over an unimaginably wide body of water.
Equations scrolled furiously across Cortana as she studied the ring. She checked and rechecked her numbers—the rotational speed of the object and its estimated mass. They didn't quite add up. She ran through a series of passive and active scans . . . and found something.
"Captain," Cortana said, "the object is clearly artificial. There's a gravity field that controls the ring's spin and keeps the atmosphere inside. At this range—and with this gear—I can't say with one hundred percent certainty, but it appears that the ring has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and Earth-normal gravity."
"If it's artificial, who the hell built it . . . and what in God's name is it?" Cortana processed that question for a full three seconds, then finally answered: "I don't know, sir."
Captain Keyes took out his pipe, lit it, and puffed once. He examined the curls of smoke thoughtfully. "Then we'd better find out."