JULY 6TH, 2555

UNKOWN LOCATION

ONE HOUR AFTER JUMP

Sergey-G005 slowly opened his eyes. Blinding sunlight fell on his helmet's visor. After a monumental effort, he managed to stand up. His heads-up display was flashing, his head was spinning. For a moment, he almost lost his balance and fell again. He didn't feel any serious injuries. There was just ringing in his head that wouldn't stop, until a soft, calm voice broke the white noise.

"Ow…" It grumbled. "You know, we really should be careful what buttons we push next time."

The voice belonged to Sergey's smart A.I companion.

"I was cut off…" Yoko said. "I don't know for how long."

"Me too." Sergey told her. "Where are we?"

"I…" Yoko fell silent, her voice seemingly distorting for a split second. "I don't know."

Sergey turned and noticed piles of burning piles of metal rubble scattered around the woods around them, along with bodies of Grunts and Brutes. It seems some of the Banished got here too.

He only now noticed that his teammates were nowhere to be seen. His radar didn't show anything else alive here.

"Any sign of the others?" He asked Yoko.

"There's something nearby." She explained. Suddenly, Sergey picked up on faint noises in the distance. It was growls and gunfire.

"Not any of ours, nor the Banished." She continued. "We're not on Kholo anymore."

"Yeah, I noticed."

"The movement, it's erratic… It's people?" She mused. "Four of them. This is… weird."

"Guess we'll just have to see it." Sergey picked up his battle rifle and headed in the direction where Yoko had marked the noise was coming from. He pondered about the situation. Because of the lively environment, they weren't on Kholo, since it was completely glassed. They were transported somewhere else. It could be another planet, possibly Forerunner in origin.

He didn't want to jump to conclusions, but it seemed like anything was possible with the Forerunners. And he was getting sick of it. He just wanted to find the others.

He jogged across the woods, his SPI armour mimicking the surroundings to camouflage him, just in case anything hostile came up.

…

Mardus observed what remained of his pack and the numerous useless Unggoy that accompanied them. Two dropships had crashed near them, most of their crews perished. The rest joined his group, bringing with them a functioning Marauder tank.

There were numerous other complications. More troops, along with Sangheili led forces dropped off from the Burning Resolve, had been with them, yet now were nowhere to be seen. Mardus felt his shoulder twitch. One of the human Demons had landed a good hit on him, and he responded by a blow from his hammer to his chest. He could've thrown another fatal hit, yet another human interfered.

He wondered about those three. He noticed they wore an infiltration type armour seen near the end of the war.

They were on Kholo for the same reason Mardus and the rest of the Banished forces were. They wanted whatever the former Covenant had missed there when they attack that world during the war. The Forerunner artefact turned out to be a portal, instead of what everyone hoped was a weapon. The humans activated it, and they all ended up here. It was obvious they were on some kind of new world.

"Chieftain," A fellow Jiralhanae addressed him. "We can't reach the others or the ship. It appears we're alone. But..." He stopped.

Mardus grabbed his hammer and rested it on his back. "But what?"

"One of our probes found humans nearby," He answered. "Four of them."

"Four?" Mardus was perplexed. They were only three Spartans.

"They are not the Demons." He continued. "They have no armor, only strange weapons."

Mardus didn't understand. They were only four Spartans. Were they sent on some kind of human colony?

"Gather everyone," He ordered. "We're heading out."

The Spartans and the artefact were no longer his primary concern. Right now, they needed to find out where they were, and if they could still get out.