Halo: Return of The Spartans
A/N: Just a little something I thought up in math, please don't forget to review, you won't hurt my feelings if you don't like it.
Chapter I
1300 hours, November 25, 2552 (Military Calendar) \ Undetermined location within Forerunner construct known as Shield World
Three weeks, it hardly seemed that long, time seemed to have little meaning in Onyx's core, ever since they had arrived here, they had been on the move, searching for a way out and a cache of forerunner technology, all the while dragging the containment cells of team katana behind them.
Fred kicked a pebble as the group trudged along, they must have been walking for almost four days when they had reached the edge of the sphere, it was a semitransparent material of unknown origin, and all that could be glimpsed of the other side was a faint and endless expanse of nothing but blue, pink and black swirls, so they had continued around, combing every inch of ground back to the center in a circle, they were on the eighteenth day of their journey and still nothing.
"By my calculations, we should only have another six days left before we have reached the center of the sphere, that is the most likely place for any technology to be stored, but more could be scattered around." explained doctor Halsey, attempting to break the silence they had descended over them all in the past few days, Ash grumbled something incoherent even to another Spartan, and Tom fiddled with his knife, a habit he had picked up while being trapped down here, Fred called for a halt. He turned and looked at Halsey through his visor.
"This is no good, I understand your logic for this search but we can't keep this up, we need to find out if there is technology here, so we need to check the most obvious places first, everyone here is on edge, so we need to find a way out as soon as possible.". Halsey nodded, pushing her glasses farther up her nose.
"Very well, we have a two day trip ahead of us to the center, we should get going.".
After another two days, they finally arrived at the center of the sphere, it looked like everything else, grassy, with scattered bushes and small trees, the Spartans looked around.
"There's nothing here.". Said Ash, kicking the ground. His armored foot kicked up a thin layer of grass and then connected with something metallic, causing everyone to look up at the sound.
"Everyone clear away the moss!". Yelled Fred, and he began pulling up the thin vegetation, revealing more of the metal engraved with forerunner glyphs and symbols. When they were done, a thirty square foot area had been cleared out, and Dr. Halsey was busy translating the lines of squares, dots, triangles and bars. She finally tapped one symbol near the center.
Each icon shone gold and lifted off the ground, they formed a sphere and began to swirl around, the wind was somehow disturbed by the movement of the holographic images.
The icons were spinning so fast they seemed to form a solid golden ball, a series of beams emanated from it's surface, they swirled around and then collected in the center, facing the humans.
Suddenly a piercing whine filled the air, causing everyone to place their hands over their ears and fall to their knees, a wave of golden light swept over them, and the beams smoothed out upon the ball's surface and changed color, into the familiar, silvery texture of a Slipspace portal.
got up and tentatively approached the portal, she reached out but did not touch it, Fred staggered to his feet.
"What the hell was that?".
"I don't know, perhaps the portal was scanning us or perhaps that is how it activates, we might never know.". Halsey was captivated by the still spinning orb, when Ash called out.
"Doctor, you should see this!". He was standing beside Katana's containment pod, and the pod's customary shiny coating from the Slipspace field was no longer present, the occupant of the first pod began to stir, the pod cracked open and air hissed in.
The Spartans, Mendez and Halsey gathered around as the Spartan III inside began to wake, they pushed aside the lid and climbed unsteadily out.
"Petty officer first class, Markus-127B, reporting for duty.". He said, reaching in and grabbing his equipment, an MA5K assault rifle, three grenades and several clips of live ammunition, Markus seemed puzzled.
"I don't remember bringing live ammo and grenades.". Fred was about to reply when the next two pods cracked open, two more Spartans in their SPI armor stepped out and teetered on their feet for a moment.
"Petty officer first class, Janice-234C, reporting.".
"Petty officer first class, David-158A, ready to roll.". Both withdrew their equipment and were just as puzzled by the presence of live ammo, Halsey leaned closer to Fred.
"That pulse must have disabled the pods containment circuits, thus awakening the occupants, and sentinels must have provided them with some ammunition, just in case of the flood, or another threat.". Fred nodded absentmindedly, as the fourth container opened with a hiss.
"Petty officer first class, Harvey-201F, ready.". Each Katana member was extremely puzzled as to why they were carrying live ammunition and what had transpired after they had gone missing, but they held their curiosity until the rest of Katana was out.
The last four were, Samantha, Glen, Catherine and Jake, when the were out and oriented the leader of Katana, David, began asking questions.
"How did we get here?". Fred explained, with some help from ash, what had transpired over the past four weeks, seemingly satisfied at the answer, David nodded and was about to ask another question when Tom approached Fred.
"Sir, the portal may close soon, we should get through soon.". Fred nodded and straightened.
"Sorry but your questions will have to wait for later, we've got to move now.". Katana gathered up their gear and moved with the rest of the group toward the portal, Saber went through first, and when Ash popped back out and gave the all-clear signal, the rest followed him through.
Being transported through the Translocation pads had always felt like hell, so the spartans took a moment to orient themselves, before taking a look at their surroundings.
They were located in the center of a strange room, the walls were lined with Forerunner glyphs and there was a single door on the far end of the room.
Fred, Kelly and Linda approached the door with caution, when they were three meters away, the door glowed a cool blue and slid open soundlessly, the corridor beyond was also empty, save for the single door at the end. The spartans divided into three teams, the IIs went ahead, Ash and Saber team hung back to protect Halsey and Mendez, Katana covered the rear.
Satisfied that the hallway held no surprises, Fred tapped the center of the door and raised his weapon, it opened to reveal a circular room with consoles around the outer edge, facing in, and a large powered down holographic projector, sunken into a pedestal in the center, with an elevated chair facing it from three meters away.
The group crowded in, suddenly all the panels warmed and the main holographic projector hummed to life, numerous forerunner symbols began to appear, as well as several images of a strange structure. The structure looked somewhat like a sentinel from the first Halo ring but without the side supports, and if it was a sentinel, the top was now the rear, the front split in two about halfway forward, one side up higher on the ship but shorter than the other.
A single blue symbol appeared in the center of the projection, it looked like a ring with a triangle inside, with a plus inside that, Halsey reached out slowly, Fred grabbed her hand.
"Wait, before we do anything here, where are we?". Halsey withdrew her hand and pushed her glasses farther up her nose.
"I would say that we are on the bridge of a forerunner warship, and that we could use it to leave this place.". Her voice trailed off as she looked at the technology around them.
"This ship alone could catapult human tech forward hundreds of years.". When she reached for the symbol again Fred made no move to stop her, the symbol rippled and brightened when she tapped it, then a large schematic or the ship appeared, a red line pointed what looked to be the reactor.
"Well, it seemed it's reactor must be activated by hand, or the connection from here to there has been severed.". Halsey observed, Fred pointed to Samantha, Janice and Olivia.
"You three, head down there and activate that thing, Dr Halsey, give them a map and tell them how to activate the generator.
"Here's the map,". A quick data transfer made sure that everyone had a map of the ship. Then she slaved the signal from the three Spartan IIIs helmetcams to her personal laptop.
"I can not tell you how to activate it, I must see it and direct you, now you can go.". The IIIs nodded and ran through the secondary door, Halsey then began setting up translation software for everyone and seating them at different stations, Fred was stationed at what appeared to be the weapon operations, his helmet automatically displayed English translations over the forerunner symbols, he could easily activate any of the many weapon systems. Halsey was now proceeding to instruct each Spartan on how to operate their console, she fed the live feed from the SIII team into the primary holo-projector. Olivia's voice filtered through the speakers hidden somewhere on the bridge.
"Approaching the reactor room now, we should be ready to reactivate it in a minute.". The door slid open and revealed a small room with a single column in the center, lines of blue pulsed along it's length, a single cluster of holograms hovered four feet above the floor. Halsey walked Olivia through the steps and soon the hologram disappeared and the reactor glowed brighter, lights all over the ship snapped on and each console began to scroll with new symbols, Halsey sat in the command chair and began to type in commands on her laptop.
A single gold pinpoint of light appeared above her keyboard.
"Hello ma'am, how may I be of service?".
"I am plugging you into the ships main computer, Jerrod, I need you to use the scanners and help us in if we get into an engagement.".
"Of course ma'am.". The dot disappeared for a moment then reappeared three times larger in the main projector. It pulsed excitedly.
"There is a wealth of information in this ship, we must return to UNSC space as soon as possible, the weapon advancements alone could help us win the war.". Halsey nodded to Linda, who double tapped the icon that had appeared in the main projector earlier, the ship rumbled and lurched, then a diagram showing a large sphere appeared, a small blue dot move incredibly slowly from the bottom, Linda hit a red icon and the dot sped up, an increased sense of drag pulled at the ships occupants, until the artificial gravity kicked in, evening the feeling out.
After three minutes the dot was almost to the top, Halsey gestured to Kelly, who pressed a quick series of symbols, the main view changed to a view like from a window located at the bow of the ship.
A Slipspace rupture opened mere meters from the vessel's bow, the ship was swallowed with darkness.
"Ma'am, Readings indicate that we will arrive at Earth in eight hours, give or take an hour, these new Slipspace drives are a little tricky to predict when exactly we exit.".
"Thank you Jerrod.". Halsey began to type on her laptop, leaving the Spartans to their own devices.
Seven hours later, Earth.
Space boiled and parted as the forerunner vessel entered normal space, the few remaining vessels in earth's orbit turned and aimed at the ship, three super MAC stations rotated to face the large vessel as well, a transmission crackled through.
"Unidentified vessel, you have entered UNSC space, state your intentions or be fired upon.".
"Do not fire, this is Spartan-104 Fredric, I am with Dr. Halsey and Spartans, we're home, and we've brought presents for everyone.". After they were dock with a station and debriefed about all that had transpired while they had been trapped, the Spartans regrouped in the Rec room. Fred stood at their head and addressed them.
"As you have all been briefed on the subject I will be brief, Master Chief and Cortana have been MIA for several weeks after their attempted escape from the Ark, now we are going to find him, I am going to request that command dispatch a ship with us on it to search for them, because if anyone can find a spartan, it is a Spartan, any questions?"
A/N: Well, that's chapter one, hope you enjoyed it, don't forget to review.