Chapter One

Spartan-A196, aboard UNSC Prowler Shadow Boxer, Slipstream Space – unknown coordinates. 0700 Hours, December 03, 2552 (Military Calendar)

A small buzzer sounded, loud in the silence that had filled the room, and roused the sole occupant of the cramped quarters from a deep sleep. Lisa, known as Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-A196, opened her eyes with some lethargy to stare up at the grey metal ceiling of her room as her hand swung out and came down on the alarm, silencing it, before sitting upright.

She blinked once and got out of bed, stretching this way and that to ease some stiffness from her muscles, followed by a quick trip to the head to relieve herself. After that, it was a simple task of donning her fatigues to make her ready to face the day, the worn fabric hiding from view a mass of burns and scars that came about from fighting a merciless foe for the best part of fifteen years. Lisa paid them no notice, keying the room's door open and ducking her tall frame under the low archway to step into an equally grey corridor.

It was part of a prowler and a familiar site to her, the small ship having served as her home for the better part of seven months as she took part in a long range, long duration counter-insurrection operation aimed at tracking down and eliminating a particularly large cell of human rebels that had been acting out of the ordinary, more so than was usual for the Insurrection. Aside from the usual thefts of military equipment, most of which were outdated items, the Innies had taken to stealing farming equipment and slipspace capable cargo ships in larger numbers, which were then used to transport the aforementioned stolen materials alongside almost everything else at their strongholds.

Lisa had followed this pattern for months, infiltrating bases on five different planets to find them either stripped of all they contained or were in the process of being cleared out, the Innies she occasionally found putting up a stiff resistance once she began combat operations against them, their task switching from loading up to tearing down to deny her a chance to acquire any kind of intelligence from the remains.

The last base, however, hadn't been so thorough in their destruction of valuable information with an intact data crystal that had avoided obliteration pointing the lone Spartan and her prowler to a far flung star system well beyond even the furthest human colony, almost six weeks of slipstream travel according to Shadow Boxer's navigation computer, and the crew had wasted little time in prepping the ship for the long journey.

Now, if the computer was correct, the stealth ship would soon be arriving at the system in just a few short hours, followed by who knew how long of travelling through real space. Human FTL drives were notoriously inaccurate, even with weeks of calculating beforehand, resulting in a ship transitioning hundreds of thousands of kilometres from their intended target. Worse, the prowler would need to be kept in what amounted to silent running mode, its engines allowed to go no further than thirty percent their rated output lest it reveal itself to any hostile ships lingering nearby.

Lisa pondered just how long it would be before she found herself back on real ground as she made her way to the bridge, detouring via the mess hall for some breakfast and coffee, arriving at the cramped room serving as the prowler's command centre to see the usual staff hunched over their stations, overseeing everything from the reactor's output to how the atmosphere was doing.

Nestled in amongst them all and seated before three viewscreens, dark save for the occasional streak of warping starlight, was Commander Eva Colbert, the person who held ultimate authority over every aspect aboard the ship and what it did. She was pouring over a data pad that held every scrap of information Lisa had acquired since the mission began, and every speculation and conclusion her analysts had drawn up after going over everything, barely looking up when the Spartan came to a halt beside her.

'Ready to get back to work?' Colbert asked.

'Yes, ma'am,' Lisa said, relishing the prospect of being on the ground once more. Despite holding a naval rank, she was more a soldier than a sailor and felt at home with dirt beneath her feet and a real atmosphere to breathe.

'Good,' Colbert said. 'NAV says we'll be dropping back to real space inside of two hours. I want you suited and booted before then, ready for a hard drop.'

'Yes, ma'am,' Lisa said again, spinning on her heel to retrace her steps out of the bridge and towards her quarters, stopping outside the adjacent room that served as her armour bay. She keyed the door open and stepped inside to see her MJOLNIR armour was just as she'd left it all those weeks ago, assembled onto a Plexiglas mannequin and somehow managing to look imposing despite being empty.

It was the fifth iteration of the suit, or the second if the models that were technically exoskeletons were excluded, capable of boosting the wearer's speed and strength to superhuman levels, and protecting them from harm by way of hardened titanium plating and a recharging energy shield that made Spartans very hard to beat on the field of battle. Along with a ninety minute supply of oxygen and magnetic holsters for weapons and equipment, the suit was modular and could be outfitted for specific environments or combat specialities.

For Lisa, who was trained in reconnaissance and covert infiltrations, this meant an emphasis on stealth rather than raw power. She had swapped the standard issue helmet and shoulders with items from the RECON line to better hide her thermal signature and reduce radar reflections, and because she often worked alone and for long periods of time, her chest was host to numerous pouches and pockets to hold everything she might need out in the field, while a standard issue medical kit was attached to her thigh.

In case of electronic locks, an ONI grade TACPAD was nestled within an armoured dock on her forearm for easy access and loaded with the best intrusion software they could muster to ensure nothing was beyond Lisa's grasp when she was on deployment.

Every piece was covered with muted earth colours to better help the Spartan avoid detection by visual means though months of fighting had inflicted dents, scratches and the occasional scorch mark upon the formerly pristine plating, and Lisa idly wondered how many more battle scars the MJOLNIR armour would earn over the next few days and weeks of her deployment as a team of technicians entered the already cramped room to help her don the suit.

Spartan-A196, aboard UNSC Prowler Shadow Boxer, Slipstream Space – unknown coordinates. 0941 Hours, December 03, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Now covered from head to toe in half a ton of metal, reactive circuits and energy shields, Lisa strode onto the bridge with just a few minutes before Shadow Boxer was due to revert back into real space and came to a halt behind Colbert's chair, momentarily drawing all eyes in the room. A Spartan in full armour was always eye catching, even if the crew had been around one for a few months, more so when they were armed with several of the crew glancing at the suppressed pistol strapped to Lisa's thigh, and to the sheathed combat knife on her chest.

She ignored them all as the navigation officer began his countdown until they transitioned back, deceleration tugging at them all as Shadow Boxer left slipspace and rejoined reality, and as Colbert ordered an immediate course correction as per prowler guidelines. Under armoured and under gunned, the small ships were at the mercy of anything bigger than a Longsword that could get a good lock onto them. Stealth was their only defence, and their biggest strength.

'Sensors,' Colbert called out once the ship was stabilised on its new heading. 'Anything?'

'Negative, ma'am. No ships, human or Covenant, are present.'

A collective sigh of relief escaped the lips of almost everyone on the bridge at that, including Lisa to a small degree, given the most they could deal with was a moderately sized and ground based hostile presence. The prowler carried weapons intended to tackle ships but they were HORNET nuclear mines, meant to be laid as a trap against an enemy with a predictable orbit or a predetermined vector that wasn't liable to change following the deployment of a minefield, and two HAVOK mines for use against enemy fortifications that had to be removed by any means necessary.

Neither weapon system had any level of shielding to protect them from re-entry and the prowler had no dropships to permit an airdrop, just eight HEVs used by Lisa for insertions. While they could be repurposed to hold nuclear payloads, they were also much slower than purpose built missile systems and much more vulnerable to AA fire, limiting their effectiveness.

Colbert nodded and said, 'Okay, start a scan of the system. Find me the nearest inhabitable planet and plot a course towards it, three tenths full.'

'Aye, commander,' navigation called out. 'Scanning now.'

Quiet minutes ticked by as the prowler's array of sensory equipment was powered up and told to scan every nook and cranny this star system contained, sending out pulses of electromagnetic energy that would reach out for anything big enough to generate a recognisable echo for the receivers that covered Shadow Boxer from front to back, left to right, to detect. When the data came in, it was down to the navigation officer to make sense of the, at times, confusing display and plan accordingly.

'Planet found, ma'am,' was the eventual reply. 'Five million kilometres distance. Moving us towards it at three tenths full now.'

'Acknowledged,' Colbert said.

With a barely perceptible hum, the engines came to life and the prowler began its long and silent journey towards the only planet in the system capable of sustaining human life. As more data came back, more celestial bodies were found, ranging from gas giants with thick, soupy atmospheres to barren rocks with no atmosphere at all, and the closer they got to the sole habitable planet, the more they learned about it.

The atmosphere, for instance, had a higher concentration of oxygen than was often the norm on human colonies, while the planet itself only generated ninety percent of a standard G and was host to numerous landmasses, deep blue oceans and pure white polar ice caps, and Lisa knew rather than guessed that the Innies they were tracking had come to this place to eke out a life for themselves, away from the UNSC and the Covenant, and that the unusual behaviour she had seen in the months prior was them gathering up all the material they might want or need to make that life a reality.

It was noble in a way, and a shining example of the indomitable human spirit refusing to bow down in the face of an impossible situation, yet the people intending to settle on this planet were anything but noble. They were little more than terrorists to the UNSC, guilty of killing millions of civilians in the name of gaining independence from a supposedly tyrannical government that cared only for lining its pockets.

What freedom did they hope to gain by bombing civilian holiday liners as they took on passengers? What supporters did they expect to rally behind them when they continued to fight against the UNSC, the only group capable of offering any real protection, in the face of the Covenant? What injustice did they seek to right by detonating nuclear devices in densely populated areas?

Perhaps after nearly sixty years of conflict, the current generation of Insurrectionists knew no better than to fight against the UNSC in the name of 'justice' and 'freedom' after years of being told that by their leaders, men and women scarcely into their teens when the Insurrection sprang to life in 2494 and repeating the words of their elders, impatient colonists who came to believe that guns and bombs were better diplomatic tools than talks and negotiations, framing themselves as the victim along the way to further justify their actions and labelling UNSC propaganda and history of the event as fabrications.

How many deaths could have been avoided had words been thrown instead of bullets?

Too many was the only answer to that and Lisa couldn't help but wonder how many more she was going to add to that pile once she got to work planetside, or when follow on Marine forces arrived to both help secure the planet of any more Innies and ready it for colonisation. Worlds ready to live on were rarities in the galaxy and the UEG wouldn't waste time in establishing a new colony when so many were being lost to the Covenant.

As they drew closer to the planet and surface details became more readily apparent, landmasses giving way to geographical features like mountains and hills, which gave way to the various ecosystems the planet housed, a shout went up from the navigation officer about a new discovery on the surface.

'Ma'am, I'm detecting numerous instances of what look to be cities and towns down there,' he said.

'What?' Colbert said. 'Several towns and cities?'

'Yes, ma'am,' the officer said. 'Details are too poor at this time for a full assessment, but I'm fairly confident there are cities down there.'

'How many?'

'My estimate is forty plus settlements, ranging from small towns to large cities. The population is anyone's guess at this point, but we could be looking at the low millions and this is based on what we've scanned so far.'

Colbert blinked, as did many others on the bridge. They had come here expecting to find a ramshackle Insurrectionist stronghold somewhere on the planet with a few hundred, perhaps as many as a thousand, rebels trying to build a life for themselves, not several million of them with towns and cities large enough to be seen from orbit. If the navigation officer's estimate was true, then they had a population that rivalled many of the Inner Colonies which would complicate their mission.

'Wait, new data incoming. Sensors are picking up several energy readings on the surface of the planet.'

'What kind of energy sources?' Colbert asked. 'Power plants? Weapons systems?'

'Negative,' the officer said. 'The type isn't one we've come across before, but they may be part of a gravity tether system. The planet has unusual characteristics for a body of its mass. By all accounts it shouldn't have a moon, or at least they should be further apart than they are, and judging by the density it should be further out, too, outside the limit of a Goldilocks zone.

'These energy sources may be part of a stabilisation system used to keep the planet, and its moon, in the right spot to sustain life.'

'That technology is still only speculative,' another officer said.

'For us,' Colbert said, cutting it. 'But we're not the only species in the galaxy, and we aren't the first to inhabit it. Who knows what secrets lie out there, waiting to be found. But, this doesn't detract from our mission which, if the population estimates are correct, has become all the more important. Spartan, ready yourself for a hard drop. We'll deploy you as close to one of the energy sources as possible. Your orders are to investigate it and any and all possible Insurrectionist activities you can see.

'Given how many might be down there, you're to remain in a strictly observation and reconnaissance role for as long as possible, even if a golden opportunity presents itself. I want the Innies down there to be as oblivious to your presence as they can be. No direct engagement, no indirect engagement, just observation. Understood?'

'Yes, ma'am,' Lisa said.

'Good,' Colbert said. 'We'll finalise your DZ while you prep your pod. Take everything you need.'

'Yes, ma'am,' Lisa said again, spinning on her heel and striding back out of the bridge towards the last of the recent additions to Shadow Boxer, an HEV room with space for eight pods that could send a single person from high orbit to the surface without the need for a dropship.

Each was already stocked with supplies, enough to keep her self sufficient for almost four weeks, plus the usual assortment of weapons a Spartan might want or need to wage war against the enemy. Bricks of C12, cans of C7, NAV markers, binoculars for far off targets, and plenty of ammunition for extended engagements though, given Colbert's instructions, Lisa wouldn't be firing her weapons for anything except self defence.

'We've selected a suitable drop zone, Spartan,' Colbert's voice said from a nearby speaker. 'It's some dense woodlands about ten miles outside of a town that's host to one of the energy sources. Cloud cover and atmospheric turbulence are keeping us from getting solid pictures of the town, and of the other two sources, but I've uploaded what we've gotten to your suit anyway.

'Good luck down there.'

Lisa only nodded as she clambered into the drop pod, sliding the hatch shut to await the violent deployment and fiery descent once Shadow Boxer had reached the drop zone, her last sight of the ship a blur of metal as the HEV was launched and began its terminal flight.

Spartan-A196, surface of unnamed planet, near unidentified energy source. 1217 Hours, December 03, 2552 (Military Calendar)

The insertion was textbook and without incident, Lisa stepping away from the now ruined drop pod with all her supplies stowed and a suppressed battle rifle in her arms mere minutes after stepping foot outside. Around her was a dark and foreboding wood filled with gnarled trees and overgrown branches that only allowed brief patches of a dark and cloudy sky to be seen, far off animal calls telling the lone Spartan she wasn't alone.

Hitching her rifle a little higher, Lisa began walking towards the nearest energy source that may or may not be a gravity tether on what may or may not be an Insurrectionist planet. On the journey down, she had combed through the orbital images Colbert had passed on about the other two locations host to gravity tethers and some of the larger cities. By and large, the architecture that could be seen did not match anything humanity, Insurrectionist or otherwise, currently fielded, or had done for hundreds of years, and neither did it seem like something that could have sprung up in just a few short months.

Rather, it seemed to be the result of several years, if not decades, of work to produce vast cities and continent spanning transport networks that could carry people from coast to coast. It was an accomplishment, a massive one, so much so that it would have been impossible to keep secret for so long. Somebody would have talked and somebody would have listened, or UNSC analysts would have come across scraps of navigational data in captured ships to slowly piece the clues together, and the Marines and the Navy would have come running long before now.

More worryingly, it was only recently that the Innies had started to stockpile their supplies and gather ships in large enough quantities. If this really was their planet, and they really had built all the cities and towns, wouldn't they already have the infrastructure necessary to preclude needing Jotun farming equipment? Wouldn't the collective ability of millions of people have produced a home grown answer?

They should have given the development of the planet and that told Lisa they weren't the ones responsible for the cities, but another group entirely.

Some wayward colonists who had gotten lost, or stranded, and their descendants had prospered enough to cover the entire planet? Maybe, but unlikely. Colonisation was the responsibility of the UNSC and they always sent fleets to prospective colonies, so having that many simultaneous slipspace drive malfunctions was astronomical at best, while private ventures were almost always driven by a need for raw materials to exploit. Any company that lost contact with a ship would raise flags and send out rescue parties, if not to find the missing crew then to stake their claim in a potential goldmine of income before someone else could.

No, the more likely answer was that a whole other alien race had developed on this world and the Innies had stumbled across them. What their ultimate plans were remained to be seen, though Lisa got the feeling they wouldn't be favourable towards the natives.

Of course, there was always the possibility that the Insurrectionists would side with the natives and weave a tale of woe and despair of how they, simple farmers trying to make a living for themselves and their families, were browbeaten by a corrupt government that used goons masquerading as soldiers to hustle them of their hard earned money, and had taken up arms after years of protesting fell on deaf ears, only to be forced from their homes and lose everything.

Lisa shook her head at that thought and pressed on, a small window in her HUD fading into existence as satellites Shadow Boxer had deployed came online and trained their cameras downwards. They showed she was nearing the edge of the forest and approaching a hill that overlooked the town, now roughly a mile and a half distant. Its streets were empty of movement but thermal scans showed most of the buildings were occupied to some degree, the total number of heat signatures adding up to a few hundred individuals in a town just a few miles across.

It looked to be a hazy smudge when Lisa emerged from the tree line and crawled the rest of the way to the hill's summit, a marginally brighter patch of grey tones set amid some rivers that wove through the buildings. Mountains were visible in the distance, identifiable only by the fact they blocked the stars behind them from sight, where a grandiose city and the second tether were located.

The third tether was far to the north, inside some sort of gigantic crystal structure that was surrounded by frozen wastelands. Whoever or whatever lived here had strange ideas when it came to building structures.

What their motivations might be would have to wait, possibly forever, so the lone Spartan shoved the thoughts away and set up a little eyrie instead that would serve as her home for the next few hours and days. With a camouflaged poncho draped over her prone form, Lisa settled in to watch the town.