The Flagship Reaven

by acethegreat

This is my first story ever posted on the internet with more stories to come. I hope you enjoy it!

Ok I am very sorry for not finishing uploading my story for about a year but I decided that I would just upload the whole story instead of drawing it out any longer! Again I am very sorry for the long wait. If you don't like halo then don't read!

No one ever saw it coming, the entire fleet destroyed! All except one, the Reaven. It all started four days ago when a unmanned ship spotted covenant activity on the planet peace, the planet where they were going to build a world completely devoted to peace with the covenant. The ship reported that the enemy was moving heavy excavation equipment to an ancient temple left there from an ancient civilization with advanced technology. They died off about 3000 years ago but their structures still remain. The covenant had a fleet of 30 escort ships including the battleship Vegna, a huge ship with 25 plasma radiation turrets, a new type of battleship cannon that fires liquid plasma which melts away the titanium hull of enemy ships. The ship also has 20 plasma turrets, and along with the ability to launch over 600 attack phantoms. It carries a compliment of 8000 elites, 10,000 grunts, 500 hunters, and 1 prophet, the prophet of Rebirth. The covenant thought that they would go unnoticed, they thought wrong!

Three days later SCSF, Secret Covenant Strike Force, Organization had pulled together 40 battle cruisers and two prototype aircraft carriers called Mercury and Reaven. The battle cruisers had a compliment of 6000 soldiers and 3000 helljumers, the ships had 500 attack pelicans, 400 scorpion tanks and 500 warthogs. The new aircraft carriers had some new toys to play with that were created from captured covenant vehicles. They had a compliment of 15,000 rangers, 7000 hell jumpers, 5000 attack pelicans, 4000 experimental attack vehicle, one Spartan (Eric), and one Elite (Officer Hunter Winter.)

Officer Hunter Winter was found beside a crashed banshee after "The Frosting" of Planet Reach, the SCSF came back to Reach to look for any survivors, they found the Spartan Eric still in Cryo sleep in the med bay of the research facility and one other human was found unconscious beside what was believed to be his warthog. That human was General Sasha Smith commander of the former frigate December Clad which was destroyed by covenant ships during the battle. All the survivors were taken to Earth where their wounds were healed and they were brought back to consciousness. The Spartan was upgraded with new armor called CSBA (Crazy Spartan Battle Armor); the General was given command of the prototype aircraft carrier Reaven and a new AI named Jessica, she was created by a doctor from Reach who also created Cortana. The Elite on the other hand went through months of interrogation but was finally released to the care of Eric who told the SCSF that the elite could be turned to the human side of this war and could be of use later. After spending 2 months with Eric, Hunter believed that the prophets were going to use halo and the forerunner technology to destroy everyone. The SCSF decided to give Hunter a chance and upgraded his armor and plasma sword that were found with him.

It was 4 in the morning on star date 3/20/2552 when SCSF received a message from an unmanned ship that there was huge activity going on at the planet called Peace, covenant activity. The covenant were sending down huge excavation equipment along with troop down to one point on the planet where there is a temple from an ancient civilization. Right after sending to message the small ship was destroyed by some sort of new weapon. The SCSF decided they needed to act now before the covenant found what they were looking for. General Sasha was to lead the battle group to the planet, destroy every covenant soldier they could find, look for what they were looking for and either destroy the temple or bring the artifact back to earth. Eric volunteered to go along for the ride and so did Hunter.

General Sasha talked to his brave crew for the first time, "Hello everyone that is going on this secret mission. Three days ago we received reports from an unmanned ship that the covenant have landed on the planet Peace and are looking for something that must be vital. They have 29 escort ships and a new ship that looks like one of our battleships except a lot bigger. Along with them the prophet called Rebirth is there to oversee their progress. Our mission is to engage the enemy fleet, destroy them, find what they were looking for and either destroy it or bring it back to earth. The aircraft carrier Mercury will stay at the outer edge of the solar system and engage any enemy vessels that try to escape. I will be controlling the carrier Reaven and lead the battle group; we have the Spartan Eric and Elite Hunter Winter who will be going down on the planet and engage the enemy till we get there to help. Good luck and Godspeed!" The battle group was all equipped with the new slip space drives created from a captured cruiser. Time till intercept was 13 hours, a lot shorter than the old time of 26 hours. So during that time Eric and Hunter got to look at their new weapons.

Two figures walked towards a solid titanium door with the words "armory" painted on it and as they got closer the doors hissed open and the lights in the room activated and the computer panels turned on. Eric walked up to one of the consoles and said "well I wonder what they have for us this time, I hope it's not a new sniper rifle, they should know by now that I don't like the bulkiness of it." They both chuckled. "Yeah and I hope they got my custom made plasma sword ready by now, I ordered it almost three months ago" said hunter. As Eric entered the final codes the armory doors hissed open again as the General walked in. "SIR" they both said as they saluted, "at ease" said Sasha, we have received word that you want to see your new equipment?" "Yes but I entered all my codes but the darn doors wont unlock sir!" "Did they not inform you Eric that you have to also have the captains' code to access prototype weapons?" Sasha walked up to the consol and typed his code in, "No they didn't those idiots. What if there was an emergency and I needed access to my weapons, huh, what would I do then?!" Eric said as he hit a nearby cart and slammed it into the wall. "Down boy" said Hunter as hit patted Eric on the back. The captain laughed as the steel locker doors hissed open, "then all you would have to do is hit the door and it would pop open with the strength that you have." "Oh" he said as he reached in and grabbed his favorite weapons. One modified assault rifle with scope equipped, "Aw you shouldn't have general, and you know I can kill anything with this." Yeah but look again in the locker."

He reached back in and grabbed a shotgun that looked like it had been modified one to many times, "what the heck is this?" The General grabbed it and loaded it, "It is a sawed off shotgun that can hold five shells…." "ONLY FIVE!?" interrupting Sasha as he shot his rifle at the targets at the end of the room. "….but these shells are titanium tipped, C4, explode on impact shells, see watch." He pointed the gun at the target made to be hit by rockets, he shot one shell only and the target flew into pieces, some of the pieces even hit Eric and Hunter and made their shields flare. "Wow now that is nice!" They both said as they let their shields recharge, "Where are my weapons at sir?" asked Hunter, "IT is in my pocket and I must say that it is very nice. I even ordered Eric one but they said he wouldn't be able to handle it, ha-ha." He handed Hunter a double-plasma sword with recharging capabilities. "Thank you, it feels just as light as the original." He turned it on and a sharp blue edge sword popped out of both ends of the hilt. "Nice" he said as he twirled it around and accidentally hit Eric's shield, "OW you idiot watch what your doing." Eric shouted as he watched his shields go down to zero. "Hey wait I am not supposed to have triple over shields?" "Yeah you do but the sword is that powerful, that is why they said you shouldn't have one, you might kill yourself." No I wouldn't; (maybe)", Hunter laughed as he shut off his sword and clipped it to his side. "General" came blasting out of everyone's headset, "This is him speaking", we are at the outer rim of the system and the Mercury is ready to leave the fleet sir!" "I am heading up to the bridge right now with Eric and Hunter." "Hunter sir?" "Yeah do you have a problem with it lieutenant!?" "No sir!" "Good then see you in a minute."

The bridge had a huge display screen that showed where the position of the entire fleet was and where the enemy position was. "Sir there is a correction in how many enemy ships there are, there are now only 20 escort ships but Vegna ship is still in orbit." There are about five planets in orbit but only two of them were able to support life, it looked as if the covenant had taken over both planets and set up an Early Warning System. "Well if it wasn't difficult enough they have to go and take over both planets!" shouted Sasha as walked onto the bridge. The activity silenced as Hunter walked into the room, not everyone thought it would be a good idea to have a covenant ally but the General approved so they just had to put up with it. "Don't worry buddy if they say anything to you just bust them in the jaw and grunt!" Eric whispered as he walked up to the screen to look at the set up of the solar system. "Ha I'll just turn on my cloak and scare them!"

"General the Mercury is hailing us", "on screen." "Ah captain Riker it is time for us to depart, may the best man survive the day." "Well then I guess I will see you in Hell huh?" said Riker as people were running around behind them. All of a sudden both of the ships bridges went to red alert and the young voice of Jessica rang out over the speakers. "General, the Vegna has disappeared and we cannot find a trace of where it went. Do you want me to take control of the battle fleet sir?" "Go ahead Jessica and while you're at it see if you can find any information about Vegna." "Yes sir!" The general walked around the bridge which looked more like a covenant bridge than a human bridge. He stopped at the weapons consol and looked at how many pelicans they had and a new plane which looked like a banshee but had no wings and could hold three people, they were called corvettes because of their stream-line looks; it also could fire a gauss canon. At 1400 hours the battle group left Mercury as it orbited the solar system, it then started launching all 9000 aircraft and soon all you could see was a sea of silver armor and black corvettes flying in formations around to system. "I don't like it, it looks to darn simple but I have a feeling that something is going to happen." Sasha thought to himself as he watches them get closer to Peace and the covenant fleet.

It was now 1600 hours and it was now time to launch the attack on the first planet, "there are only 200 elites and 300 grunts on the surface and they are in a valley right on the equator sir." "Easy enough for just me and Hunter to handle sir" Eric said to Sasha on a private com channel. "No I'll send down a hunting party with you, you don't know how your weapons will work down in actual combat, Spartan." You know he is serious when he starts pulling rank names out and you don't want to argue or might not even go, "Understood!" Then Eric turned off his com to the bridge and started to load the pelican with troops, twelve hell jumpers should be adequate. These new pelican looked like the originals but were two times bigger and had allot more pretty toys sticking out of it including a rail gun that launched explosive charges.

The pelican started to rumble off the flight deck of the Reaven when Eric felt something funny happen to his suit. "What's wrong?" asked Hunter, "I don't know it feels like there is someone else is here…" "There is!" she said, "Who the hell are you?" he shouted. "Hi I am Jessica, I was sent by General Sasha to help you two on your missions." "Oh great now I have nanny to watch me?" "No I am here to help you not just watch you, I can make your reaction time and display vital information to you." "Oh ok fine, welcome to my head, there might not be much there but it's home." Right after she arrived the pelican starts to tilt to the front as it entered the atmosphere, they were going to land five miles away from the enemy. Eric thought they would go in unnoticed; he was wrong; he forgot that they sent up a EWS and now knew the humans were here. They were sending a message to the fleet and had started to build up their defenses in preparation for the attack.

The radio crackled on as it readjusted for the planet surface, "Eric we have landed and gone unnoticed, preparing to drop the door in five," "roger that pilot." So far everything had gone according to plan, it was still dark outside, and there no enemies on radar. Eric and Hunter were both on the edge because there is always calm before the storm. "TOUCH DOWN GO, GO, GO!" The door slammed with an echo onto the soft ground, a heavy fog was in the air, they had landed in a forest that stretched hundreds of feet into the air. They had unloaded all their equipment and took as much ammo as they could. "Be flying high covering your retreat sir" the pilot said as he took off and went to 2500 feet, "roger, call you when we are done." The twelve hell jumpers were wearing cameo to try and blend in, Eric and Hunter's armor could change color between cameo and their own color. Eric tapped a control panel on his right wrist and his armor changed to blue, "what in the world are you doing Eric?" asked Hunter as he turned on his cloaking device, "if I am going to fight my way then I have to be wearing my blue armor i…" before he could finish Jessica shouted over their radio's "Stop lollygagging around and get moving, it will be sunrise right when we get to our objective if we leave now!" "Ok just calm down we can make it in plenty of time, I ran around up in the mountains once with John, now known as master chief, while we were in training." Hunter was already well ahead of the group checking for any activity, he ran 2 miles ahead when he noticed black smoke rising from a crater just ahead of him. "I don't like the looks of this," he said to himself, "Eric you need to get up here now something is wrong, damn wrong." "Roger be there in 10, what is the situation?" "Hold on…." Hunter creped up to the crash site of what looked like a pelican; he went inside and found the pilot that had brought them down. "Who ar..e you? Is th…that you Hunter?" The pilot was ripped into two pieces with his entrails burnt and had second degree burns all over his body, Hunter tries to remove the pilot coat only to find that is has been melted to his body. "Oh god no, Eric this pelican is the one that brought us down….. the covenant knows were here. This man has second degree burns all over his body and his suit has been melted to him." Hunter injects the man with anesthetic to try and help the pain. "Roger that…….. Hunter you know what must be done, it is…… the only human or elite thing to do" Eric said as he told the troops what had happened. "Roger that sir," He turned off his radio and woke the pilot up, "I am sorry but there is only one thing left I can do for you, it is….." The pilot grabbed Hunter and said "Sir I would rather die by my friends hands right now than my enemies. I now know why Eric trusts you……. Do it!" Hunter pulled out his sword and in one quick motion sliced into the soldier's heart. "Ah, I……see………be..a…u..t.i" the soldier eyes rolled back and his body went limp. Hunter put the pilots' arms over his chest and threw a grenade in the wreckage. Parts of the ship flew everywhere, "Crash site secured, scouting ahead" "roger that."

It had been four hours since they had left the ship, Sasha was getting worried. "Any word from Pelican 1?" "No sir," "I don't like this, not one bit. It has been to quiet, surly the covenant would have sent a message to their fleet by now." He was pacing the bridge when "red alert" popped up on everyone's screen. "Damn it, what's going on? Is it the covenant?" "Sir the covenant is heading our way at coordinates 2-5-0, time till intercept, 2 hours!" "Alright," Sasha shouted as he pulled a key out from around his neck, ran to the captain's consol. "Lets see how they like our new weapon!" He smirked as he turned the key. The fleets' engines started to rumble, after five minutes, the fleet disappeared.

"Eric, Eric haul ass and get up here ASAP! We've got enemies to butcher." Hunter was at the top of a tree, three hundred yards from the enemy encampment. "Hunter report, what is the situation?" Eric was running with the soldiers less than five minutes from Hunters' position. "Hunter do you think we need Big John?" "Oh yeah, we need him bad!" Eric climbed up a tree right next to Hunter and looked at the brightly lit encampment. As they looked around they counted 40 banshees, 20 wraith tanks, 200 ghosts, and 100 stationary turrets. "Holy sh..." "Don't say it Eric, we have a bunch a greenies that we don't want freaking out." "Right, right sorry." "Hey sir what do you see?' asked one of the soldiers, "Nothing we can't handle." Both of them climb down from the trees, Hunter opens a private com with Eric. "Nothing WE can't handle?" "That's right you said we need Big John and I agree, Jess (Jessica) will you call the General and tell him to send down Big John." "You know you could ask nicer and not sound in such a rush." "Oh great you really do sound like Cortana." Hunter said as he checked his weapon. "Strike team to Reaven come in we need Big John over, I repeat strike team to Reaven come in." All she heard was static which could only mean one thing, trouble! "Eric I can't reach the general, that means they were either destroyed or running silent. Either way we need to destroy the enemy without Big John." "Well time to welcome ourselves in now won't we!" Hunter pulled out his sword and turned it on, "Well should I go in first or should you?" Eric called the hell jumpers up with them, "no I think I have a better idea!"

The covenant fleet had reached the small planet where Eric and Hunter were, the ship Vegna had stayed back at Peace to oversee the drilling that they was going on, but the captain had come along to help the defense of the outpost. "Captain Slayer we have prepared a drop ship for you to take you down to the planet," "Good, I hope it is that traitor of a brother is down there, and then I can kill him and return glory to my family!" He walked to the drop ship and flew down to the outpost, everything was quiet and he knew it would soon end. "Put the grunts on the turrets and at the front lines, Hunters behind them and elites arm the wraith tanks and ghosts. WE STOP THEM HERE!" There was a loud roar from the troops as they moved into position. "Captain Slayer should we set up air coordinated strikes with the banshees?" "No, if we are going to fight them I don't want this to be a lopsided battle. Have them get taken to the drop ships incase we need emergency attack forces. Put 500 grunts and 200 elites there to guard the ships!" "Yes sir, what weapons do you want sir?" "Pull out the ancient weapons!"

"Right lets put this plan into action, are you sure you can do it Jess?" "I think I can but that is a lot to do." It was almost dawn; Hunter was running around the enemy encampment to where they were storing their vehicles. "Hunter to Eric I am in position ready to start my run!" Hunter turned on his cloaking device and sneaked past the guards without any problems. He snuck up on three elites, pulled out his sword and with one quick motion sliced two of them in the heart and the other one he stabbed in the back. "I am sorry my friends but you won't see to reason." Purple blood was all over his armor and was dripping from his sword. He stood and looked at the elites, dead. He shook it off and ran into the middle of the banshees. "Hunter to Jess start your take over whenever you want." "Right staring now!" Jess hacked into the controls of every drop ship and banshee that was there. "How do you like this gullies!!" Without warning to the enemy their banshees took off and started firing at them, first they went on suicide runs and dive bombed. The first of the hunters were cut in two and fell to the ground. Then the others tried to shoot the banshees down. The banshees slammed into the ground and blew up, sending grunts and hunters flying. Between all the confusion Eric had started to attack with the soldiers, 26 rockets flew from the trees and slammed into the turrets sending it and the grunt arming it flying into the grunts behind it, smashing and cracking the grunts it fell on. After a few seconds a second round of rockets flew and blew apart the lines of grunts and elites like tissue paper. Bodies and blood of covenant flew in every direction, confusing the enemy even more. Hunter was running up to what was left of the enemy, cutting everything in his path in half, grunts, elites, hunters it didn't matter with his sword he can cut through anything, even the hunters shields.

"Sir, Hunter and Eric have started their attack; waiting for your order." "Alright, send orders to every ship to charge up main rail guns and launch every ship they've got! Attack in three….two……one…….now!" A hail or metal flew and slammed into the covenant cruisers, melting the shields right off and tearing apart the hull like a bullet going into a paper target. Already five of the enemy ships were falling to pieces. The fleet de-cloaked, they were surrounding the enemy and prepping the next shots. "Sir enemy cruisers charging up weapons, time till firing 5 seconds!" The cruisers hull turned bright green as they prep to fire their new weapons. "Evasive maneuvers bring us about to their left flank." The enemy opened up and a green goop flew at the fleet, most of the shots just touched to ships but four of the ships were hit directly. "This is Voyager, direct hit no damage……..wait no don't let it touch your ships, you'll noooooo….." All of a sudden the four ships that were hit exploded, throwing metal in every direction. Bodies of dead men flew into the view screen of the Reaven. Blood splattered on the camera. "Prepare next barrage, tell all pelicans to fly in and do as much damage as they can." A fleet of silver pelicans flew into the enemy fleet. The real battle had just begun.

"Hell jumpers watch my back!" Eric jumped out of the trees and ran into the enemy, he shot his assault rifle, throwing one round of 90 shells at the enemy he killed 25 grunts, 10 grunts tried to run away but Eric bashed their skulls into pulp. 24 rockets whizzed by Eric's' head and blew apart 10 hunters that were charging at him. "Thanks" he said as he ran up and picked up a plasma sword from a dismembered arm. "Jess to Eric approximately 25 of their troops remains, but I have run out of banshees to fly, I have one transport ship waiting to evac when we're done." Hunter was wiping out the elites with little trouble, slashing most of them in two or just cutting off their heads in one swift move. He had to stop every so often to wipe the purple blood from him eyes, he had almost killed everyone in his area when he saw a black figure walk through a cloud of black smoke. "No it can't be!" The figure walked towards him and started laughing, "so it is you brother, I thought you had been killed and died with honor on that small human outpost?" "No," Hunter said as he pulled out his sword, "I am well alive." "But now you dishonor our family by siding with the enemy. Father would kill himself if he knew of your treachery!" Slayer said as he pulled out his two double-bladed swords. "Why? Why do you have fathers' sword which belonged to our ancestors?" "So that I can kill you and bring glory back to the house of Winters, and the prophets will be pleased that I, Slayer, killed the traitor!" Slayer charged at Hunter, jumped into the air and slashed at him, Hunter raised his sword, blocking his brothers' attack. "All you will do Slayer is bring more dishonor to our family by killing your own brother!" Hunter shouted as he swung multiple times at his brother, but his slashes were blocked. "Not If I can't tell who the traitor is," Slayer shouted as he hit Hunter in the shoulder and cutting Hunters' arm, "I can tell them that my brother was killed in a glorious battle and that the traitor was a dishonorable nobody!" Hunter struggles in pain to attack again, "I can't believe you would kill your own brother!" He lunges and slashes, but Slayer slashes Hunters' hand and legs, making him drop his sword. "If you truly want to know why I joined the humans here is why, they told me that the prophets are just going to use the rings to destroy all life in the universe and…" "SHUT UP!!" Slayers' foot pushed Hunter to the ground, "AHH" Hunter screams as his wounds are torn open even more, a pool of blood now forms around the two just as it starts to rain. "Then tell me one thing, is SHE still alive?" Hunter asked with a short breath, "For now, but when I tell her of your treachery she won't be able to stand it, and then she will kill herself because she can't stand having been in love with a traitor! WARG!!" He shouted as he twirled his sword s in the air ready to deliver the final strike, "Die now……What….the…?" The tip of a blue plasma sword stuck through the chest of Slayer, "Not if I kill you first, this is for trying to kill my best friend!" Eric pulled his sword out of Slayer and slashed him right down the middle, blood splattered on Eric's helmet and Slayers' dead body feel to the ground. "You all right Hunter?" Eric asked as he helped his friend off the ground, "yeah…I'm fine, thanks." The soldiers finished what was left of the enemy resistance, which only consisted of 75 scarred grunts. "Eric the enemy has been eliminated, no casualties, well done; I will call the drop ship in for evac." "Good we'll be waiting," Hunter said as he hobbled away with Eric and the twelve brave hell jumpers into a cloud of smoke.

"SIR 75 of the pelicans have been shot down, the enemy has only three ships that are combat capable!" "How many ships do we have?" Sasha asked as sparks flew from consoles and ceiling tile came crashing down. "We have 15 left, sir that are combat capable sir!" Pieces of ships, both covenant and human we floating around, some burning, some blowing to pieces in a blue burst as missed shots slammed into them. "Bring us about behind what's left of the Voyager, I have an idea." The Reaven roared the floating debris of Voyager, "call our pelicans back and tell them to launch grappling hooks onto the Voyager and drag it under us." 12 pelicans hooked onto the debris and started to drag it. "Now order the pelicans to fly as fast as they can right towards a covenant cruiser. We will follow right behind them." The pelicans flew right towards the lead ship, the enemy cruiser started to fire all 24 of it's' plasma cannons toward them. "Sir, two of the pelicans have been shot down, they are now 30 seconds from impact." "Tell them to disconnect now, charge all rail guns and brace yourselves." Sasha shouted as he grabbed hold of a bar near the weapons consol. The pelicans disconnected and the debris flew straight into the cruiser, their shields rippled and disappeared. The Voyager smashed right into the nose and the main power reactor of the cruiser, one bright explosion, as bright as a star, rippled out of the core of the ship. After the explosion, the Reaven came screaming over the Voyager, "All cannons fire!" 20 molten slugs screamed out from the Reaven and immediately hit the enemy ship. The covenant blew apart in one big explosion, little pieces flew in every direction, "Crew of the Voyager, your lives did not end without a bang!"

The Reaven joined the battle with the fleet, an array of 50 flew from the fleet and slammed into the two remaining cruisers, the ships fell apart and vaporized into nothing. "Sir we have won!" "We did it, not as bad as I had thought," Sasha thought as he examined the damage report on his consol, "15 ships in battle readiness, 25 ships lost; that is still too many." "Captain, incoming message from Jessica; Mission complete returning to Reaven in a captured drop ship over and out."

The drop ship landed on the deck of the Reaven, "Well, I heard you had fun fighting with you new toy general?" Eric was walking off the pelican with Hunter under his one arm; Hunter was hobbling on one leg. "Oh yes, just a little bit, I must say it needs more guns, ha-ha!" Sasha chuckled as he signed the marines to come with a stretcher for Hunter. He had been quiet since Eric saved him from his brother. "You both must be tired, I have set up quarters for you two in the armory. "Ah it is good to be home," Jessica integrated herself back into the Reaven, "I hope you haven't scratched my ship general!" "If I did I will put a new coat of paint on it myself." The general walked to his quarter to write a battle report, Eric went to the armory to repair his armor and check out his weapons. Hunter sat in his room after getting sown back together, he still hadn't talked to anyone, he just sat and thought, "I wonder how she is doing?"

"Sir, rescue operations are now complete, the Reaven suffered no damage but we lost 50 pelicans." It had been 16 hours since the battle and 2000 soldiers had been rescued and the 15 ships left in the fleet had been repaired. "General Sasha to Mercury what is your report? We have defeated the covenant fleet that attacked over." "Roger this is the Mercury we have seen nothing and have not been picking up any messages. I have sent pelicans over to take the wounded off your hands. General we have received a pelican from earth that has someone waiting to see you, over and out." Sasha tapped on the intercom panel to the armory, "Eric, you and Hunter need to head to the flight deck, you have a visitor." "Roger," Eric walked over to Hunter, "hey did you hear the general?" "Yeah, I am not deaf let's go." Hunter groaned as he stood up, his wounds were healed but his muscles were fully rejoined yet. "Hunter!" Jessica shouted, "You shouldn't be walking yet for another 20 minutes!" "I am fine; I need to exercise them anyway." Hunter looked over at Eric, he was standing in front of a mirror looking at his suit, "Hey what's wrong?" "Does this suit make me look fat?" They both laughed as they walked onto the elevator.

Eric told the elevator to take them to the deck, Hunter pulled out his father's sword that he grabbed off his brothers body. "What's that?" Eric asked, "One moment," Jessica said as she analyzed the sword, "it appears to be an ancient plasma sword, double bladed and charges its' batteries as it is used. Much like the one we made but more precise in its design." "It belongs to my father, you might call it a family air loom," he turned it on and bright red blades popped out, "my brother brought it with him to kill me!" The elevator stopped and hissed open to expose a huge shielded area the size of two football fields filled with a small fleet of pelicans, they walked out just as the pelican landed. Eric and Hunter stood to attention and saluted as the pelican door opened with steam flowing out from a ruptured coolant pipe inside. Out of the pelican walked a person wearing the armor that looked like Eric's but more advanced. "Identify yourself!" Eric shouted as he went to pull out his pistol, the stranger took off her helmet, it was Kelly! "Howdy boys, mind if I join you?" "Kelly, it's good to see you but what in the hell are you doing here? Where is the doc.?" "Docs fine, she sends her love, Master Chief told me, and I quote, 'I don't need help, go join Eric, he always needs somebody to hold his hand,' so here I am." She pulled out her equipment and two huge trunks, "I have gifts for both you guys from the Doc." Hunter walked up to his case and opened it, inside was a weapon that looked like a brute shot but no blade and a huge drum that had plasma grenades inside. "It's a plasma grenade launcher, it works like a brute shot but it fires plasma grenades and hold 25 grenades." Kelly reached into the container and pulled out an ammo box that had 50 plasma grenades written on the side. "Sweet thanks, but how does this Doc know me?" "She has been studying you for quit some time." Kelly laid the other container on the ground, "and this one is for you, Eric." He opened the container and pulled out a rocket launcher that had four barrels on it, "This is an advanced rocket launcher that launches either two tubes at once or one tube, which ever you prefer. It has lock-on option and you can carry 24 rockets. "Nice, but I just have one problem with it. I don't like the color of it." They all broke out laughing, "You still have your sense of humor Eric!"

They walked onto the bridge and introduce Kelly to Sasha, "Kelly reporting for duty General!" "Good to have you aboard, welcome to the Reaven, I am General Sasha. Sorry but there is not a lot of time for introductions but the covenant communication lines has doubled, which means that they are getting closer to their objective." He walked up to the strategy board and started to explain his plan of attack, "Ok we wait until the excavation site is on the night side, then we send Eric, Hunter and Kelly down…." "WHOA," Eric shouted, "are you saying that you will only send down me, Hunter and Kelly? That is suicide sir!" Sasha cleared his throat, "Ahem, along with Jessica, you will go down and start you siege." "oh sure, adding Jess will make this mission be a piece of cake, maybe if she had a gun it might help kill us" Eric said to Hunter on a private comm.. "When you start your attack we will begin our attack on Vegna and destroy it as fast as we can. Then we will send down pelicans on attack runs and drop off reinforcements." "Sir Message from Mercury! 'Message intercepted from Vegna calling for reinforcements. We sent a reply saying that backup is on its way. Did we do the right thing?" Sasha walked over to the comm. Station, "send message to Mercury, tell them to activate jamming satellites and raise their alert level to Alpha!" "General," Eric tapped Sasha on the shoulder, "permission to give advice?" "Granted" Eric walked up to the strategy map, "Sir, I think you should allow Kelly and Hunter to go down to the planet, it will be a good warm up for Kelly. I will take Jess to Vegna; we will take the captured drop ship over, go through their docking bay, head towards and take over their bridge. After we take over the bridge we will suck the air out and kill the entire covenant crew. Meanwhile Hunter and Kelly will kill the covenant in the planet, find what they were looking for and either bring it with them or destroy it." They stood still for a few minutes until Jessica appeared on her pedestal, "General, the fleet is ready to move, and all survivors have been evacuated to the Mercury." "Alright," Sasha walked over to Eric at the strategy map, "Eric, you will go first and we will wait for the all clear signal. Then we will join you and launch Hunter and Kelly down to Peace. After you flush the covenant out, we will board and wipe out all remaining forces and take control. Then you will join Hunter and Kelly down on the planet." "Yes sir, if I don't contact in 10 hours start your attack, eventually I will send the message." Eric walked over to Hunter who was looking at the view screen that was showing Vegna. "Hunter, what's wrong?" Hunter looked at Eric with a deep stare, "When I was captured, this ship was just a design, a dream of mine that they claimed would never work. My wi….I mean a friend was going to be captain and I was going to lead that ships army. I guess they thought it was a good design and decided to build it. I never thought 'she' would be captain." Would you rather go to the ship and I will go with Kelly?" "Hunter pulled out his fathers' sword, "I would like to but I am not sure." Eric put his hand on Hunters' shoulder, "We have 2 hours before we launch our plan, think about it and tell me before we launch!" "Thanks." Eric and Kelly went down to the armory to try out their weapons; Sasha was getting his battle strategy figured out; Hunter went to the crew dinning area and stood at the window, Just looking at the stars. "If I go to Vegna I can find her and show her that I am alive, and try to convince her that what she is doing is wrong; but if I do go and she doesn't believe me, then I might have to kill her and that would just tear me apart. What should I do?"

"Eric we are ready to launch Kelly and you down to the planet, Hunter will be leaving three minutes after you. Will you need any reinforcements?" "No I think we are ok, but Hunter might need somebody to hold his hand!" Hunter came on a private line, "No I don't need anybody, I have Jess and we will be just fine. Besides we are going down to the planet to find any covenant survivors and take them with us." General Sasha came over the comm. System, "Here's how we will proceed. Hunter will start his mission, once they send a message that they have disabled the plasma canons on the ship, Eric and Kelly will start their attack. Whoever finishes their mission first will receive the reinforcements. Good luck, keep safe!" The shield dropped and on the deck and the pelican carrying Eric and Kelly roared off the deck and headed towards Peace, The drop ship wobbled off the deck as Jessica was learning how to pilot. The drop ship finally reached the planet where they found two survivors, a grunt and a hunter. The hunter had to be knocked out since he started to attack the drop ship. "Why is he attacking us?" Hunter asked as he beamed up the hunter, "(Wheeze) his mate was killed (wheeze) and a hunter goes crazy if his mate is killed (wheeze.)" The grunts tank was hit but still had some gas left in it. The drop ship took off and in 10 minutes they reached Vegna, "wow now that is a big ship!" Hunter stopped the ship as another drop ship approached them, "(wheeze) I thought you flew this ship down to the planet?" "I did but I never saw the ship up this close before!" "Halt what ship do you come from?" A loud, harsh voice came booming over the comm. "This is drop ship Yarg, from the ship Vegna, coming from the human controlled outpost, I have survivors on board and they need a healing tube." Hunter sat as they were scanned by Vegna, "Good, welcome back, land in bay 24 for medical attention." The shield on the bay flickered off and the drop ship crash landed inside the bay, three purple explosions went off and the drop ship doors flew off. An emergency crew of 12 grunts and 4 elites ran up, Hunter jumped out of the smoke and fell to the floor coughing. "Elite are you alright?" An elite with silver armor walked up and helped pulled Hunter to his feet, "I am alright but the grunt and hunter I brought are dead, I am the only survivor now." "What Happened? Where is everyone else?" A grunt walked up to Hunter and handed him some biofoam for his shoulder wound, "Lead me to the bridge, I have a message for the Captain. It is from Slayer Winter, he was killed by a SPARTAN!" "Right I will take you there immediately, would you mind telling me why you have Slayers' sword?" Hunter quickly grabbed the sword, "I brought it to the captain as proof that Slayer died in battle." The walked through a purple door that lead up a ramp, "So far so good, it doesn't seem that they suspect anything. Touch that control panel over there and I will hack into the covenant main frame!" Hunter "accidentally" Tripped and put his hand on the control panel. He pushed himself back up and continued walking, "I am logged on, it appears that they are looking for a storage room that has a map in it, they have no idea what the map shows but it must be something important to bring a prophet with them. I will sneak around and prepare my surprise, whenever you tell me I will drain the air everywhere except the bridge. All you have to do is kill everyone on the bridge, it is that simple!" "Oh sure, you make it sound so simple, at least I have my weapons still so it should make it easier."

"How is Hunter doing general?" Eric and Kelly were sitting in a dense forest 4 clicks away from the excavation site. It just turned 2100 hours on the planet; from where they were sitting they saw the lights from the covenant. "I told you radio silence Eric. Since when don't you follow orders? Oh well, while I am talking to you Jessica has sneaked into the mainframe. That is all the Intel we have, are you getting edgy Eric?" Eric kicked a rock, "maybe, I am just tired of sitting around doing nothing." Kelly leaned over and slapped Eric's helmet, "Hey, we haven't even been here for 10 minutes, you can wait a bit longer!" "My trigger finger is getting itchy; maybe I can creep up and kill a few grunts without them noticing!" Kelly grabbed Eric's shoulder, "No you don't……. I get first kill, he-he" They both laughed and then went silent again.

"Hunter, we are almost to the bridge," they turned a corner and saw a straight hallway, 80 feet long and 20 feet high. The walls had armored elite guards lined up with plasma scepters in one hand and Jackal shields in the other. "I am going to have to move fast, she might recognize me!" Hunter tapped his helmet, "Jess, after I enter the bridge, give me 30 seconds to remember the lay out of the room. Then shut off the lights and seal off the doors, after that do your thing and I will do mine." "Right, but won't you have trouble seeing?" Hunter gave her a grunt and grabbed his two swords. The double doors were at least 10 feet tall, they slide open with a swoosh. Inside the room where ten elite officers and ten grunt officers, they all turned to Hunter as he walked up to the captain, "IT"S HER!" There was a tall female elite, she was slender and very beautiful, even for an elite. "It's you Hunter? But I thought you were killed at that human planet?" "Visha, what are you doing piloting this ship?" "This was your dream before you left and when I heard you died all I could think about was piloting your dream. I lo……" The lights turned off and the soft rumbling of the ships engines stopped, "HUNTER NOW!" Hunter turned on his cloaking device and pulled out both plasma swords, the elites were grumbling and stumbling about, "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" Hunter sneaked up behind the silver elite, "I work for the humans now, and you are all enemies! Visha hit the ground!" Hunter swirled in a circle, slicing the nine elites in two, then he fell to the floor and swirled around again this time killing the ten grunts and finishing off the elites. "I have locked the bridge tight, proceeding to drain the air out of the rest of the ship," a loud whoosh sounded throughout the ship as the air left, "restoring lights on the bridge!" The light flickered back on, a huge circle of purple and blue blood lay on the floor and bodies lay cut in half and mutilated. Visha stood up, dumbstruck and confused she quickly pointed her plasma rifle at Hunter; Hunter stood ten feet away with his swords. Blood dripped from his face and swords, "Why did you kill your own people?" "Because they are going to lead this galaxy to destruction by activating the sacred rings." He started to walk closer to her but was stopped when she fired right at his feet, "You betray your own race! The prophets were not leading us towards destruction but redemption! If you come any closer I will shoot." Hunter walked closer to her, "DON'T I WILL SHOOT!" he kept walking and grabbed her rifle, "you won't fire since you still love me." She collapsed on the ground crying, "I still love you too, even though I have been gone for a long time I have thought about you almost every day." He knelt down in front of her and put his arms around her, "I am going to protect from now on, please forgive me for what I am about to do!" "What do you mea……?" He injected her with a sedative, she fell asleep and fell into his arms, "I promise I will protect you no matter what."

Hunter carried Visha to the bridge escape pod, "I never knew you were married, even though I was in you thoughts and I went through your memories I never saw that you had a wife, HOW COULD YOU HIDE IT SO WELL?" "Believe me, living as an elite your learn how to hide your feelings. Have all the other covenant on the ship been eliminated?" Jess quickly went through the ships cameras, "yeah, we are the only thing alive. I am sending a message to the general." "Good, do one thing for me, if something happens to me…" "I know I will make sure she gets to the Reaven good and well." Hunter started to type into the bridge control consoles, "thanks!"

"Sir Message coming in from Vegna." "Patch it through." There was a crackle from the filtering system then Jessica's voice came on, "this is Jessica, we have successfully taken over the Vegna, tell Eric and Kelly to begin their attack. Sir we have picked up someone else, I cannot disclose who it is but you will be surprised." "Roger Jess, sending over troop for security sweeps." Sasha walked up to his consol, "not able to tell me who the visitor is but I am supposed to welcome that person in, this will be fun."

"Eric look, the covenant have started to load up on their drop ships." Eric quickly looked up, three new and improved drop ships were floating right above the encampment while elites, hunter, and grunts loaded up with their vehicles. "Message coming in from Reaven, BEGIN ATTACK!" "Right," Eric jumped out of the woods with his rocket launcher, he locked on, "I am turning the rocket launcher to fire all four rockets at once!" Kelly jumped out of the woods to where he was standing, "but that's crazy!" The rocket launcher fired and sent Eric and Kelly flying back 10 feet, all four rockets hit a drop ship, the ship shook and fell to the ground. After a brief minute the ship blew apart in a bright blue flash, killing all the surrounding troops. "WOW now that is firepower, quickly reload and destroy the other two!" Eric jumped back to his feet and loaded another round; he fired it on the second ship, sending him flying back again. This time they slammed right into the nose of the ship, quickly making it bubble and explode killing even more and destroying just about every vehicle. Kelly zoomed in with her sniper rifle and shot right into a group of 50 grunts, "what is one shot going to do against 50 grunts?" Eric said as he reloaded for another round, "just watch!" After three seconds a huge explosion went off, nothing was left of the group of grunts except a big crater. "What did you shoot at a fuel rod?" Kelly ran up to the crater, "nope, the doc provided me with some C-4 tipped sniper ammo, comes in real handy against hunter!" They both laughed, Eric pulled out his sword and started slicing elites in half, blood squirted on his visor; Kelly fired her rifle at groups of grunts and any hunters she saw. By now there were only a few covenant troops left, "Kelly this is Eric a group of fortified hunters and elites have barricaded themselves at the entrance of the tunnel they dug, if I fire my rockets I might make the tunnel cave in, I need your gun up here now!" Kelly ran to catch up with Eric, she ran over dead hunters and elites, many of them were burned or cut into pieces by Eric, burning covenant flesh filled the air. Even though they had battled before and have been in a lot worse situations, the sight was still gruesome. Kelly run over a blob stained hill and saw blue explosions shooting from a cave and saw Eric leaning up against the cave entrance, "Kelly it is about time, what took you?" Kelly raised her sniper rifle up and pointed it down the cave, "well you didn't leave me a clear path to follow." A sharp long white trail of smoke ran right past Eric and into the cave, two seconds later a loud boom rumbled out of the cave and then a puff of black smoke rolled out. "Nice shot but you should have kept up with me." Eric ran down the cave and right into the smoke, "well I am not used to running like this so I am having trouble keeping up, ha-ha." They ran about 500 yards when they ran right into a huge open chamber, it was about 200 feet tall and 500 feet wide; a bright beam of light shined down from the center of the roof, it pointed to a hole that was being dug by the covenant. "General this is Eric, I have reached the place where the covenant have been excavating, and it is a big chamber that has a hole in the middle of it. May I proceed sir?" All he got through the comm. was static, "I wonder what is going on?" Eric raised his gun up, "it might just be static from the cave." "How long has it been since we last communicated with Reaven?" Kelly tapped a button on her arm and numbers appeared on the little view screen, "about three hours, let's proceed and we can make communications later," "alright."

(20 minutes earlier) Sasha walked about anxiously in his cabin; without any warning the alarm came blaring on and the lights turned red. "This is the general, what is going on?" "This is the bridge we have enemy ships on radar, three capital ships bearing 2-5-0 range 50,000 miles, time till interception 3 hours!" Sasha ran out of his cabin and up to the bridge, "patch me through to Hunter," a screech rang out from the comm. For a second but then Hunter appeared on the view screen, "Hunter this is the Reaven three covenant capital ships are coming this way; try and make communications with them. We will turn on our cloaking device." "Roger, I will attempt to make contact." Hunter turned off his view screen, "you men make yourself scattered, Jess try to assimilate the covenant AI and rewrite it to follow our orders." "Right I will do my best, I have patched the covenant ship up you can talk to them now." An elite appeared on the screen along with a brute behind him, "what is your status Vegna? What happened?" Our status is undamaged, the humans mobilized a fleet to try and stop our plans for the search of a holy relic, and even though we lost every ship except us we managed to destroy them. We are continuing our excavation." The brute leaned forward and whispered something to the elite leader, the elite shook his head and looked at Hunter, "right, I am leaving one capital ship to reinforce you. This is the ship Kiloper proceeding on course, over and out." Hunter sat down on the floor and breathed a sigh of relief and the marines ran back in, "Hunter what should we do sir?" Hunter looked up at them and said, "I am going to go over to their ship and "inspect" it, I will take Jess over with me again and we will do the same thing we did before. Jess are you done yet? We will be going over soon." "Yeah, I have been done since three minutes after you told me what to do. I am ready to go whenever you are." Hunter walked up to a control panel and Jess transferred into his helmet. "I have set the AI to follow the soldiers' orders." Hunter walked out of the bridge and walked down the long hallway that only hours ago had elite guards standing on the sides of the hall. Now only pieces of armor lye on the ground, he walked down the hall and turned into the hanger that held banshees. "This is Hunter, I am coming over to inspect your ship and crew, please prepare for my arrival." Hunter jumped into a banshee and flew towards the capital ship, "this is grunt purge I have been authorized to clear you for landing." Hunter landed in the bay where 3000 banshees were sitting on the landing deck, "wow that's a lot of banshees that I will have to destroy somehow." Hunter landed and jumped out of it, a group of 5 elites walked up to him, "greetings Hunter, we are glad that you have come to inspect our ship. If you will follow us we can take you to the bridge." Hunter followed the group, the design was much like Vegna but a little bit bigger, "do what you did before, Hunter, and I will take control like before." Hunter went to trip again but this time he really did trip. He barely touched the panel but it was just enough for her to transfer. "Sir are you alright?" An elite leaned over and helped him back up, "Jess, I hope you transferred because that one hurt!" Jessica laughed, "Yeah I just made it." The group continued walking and wound up in a long hallway just like the one Vegna had except there were no guards lined up on the wall. "Why are there no guards lined up here?" "The captain doesn't like them outside while he is inside, so they follow him everywhere." Hunter quickly turned on his private comm. "Jess Hold off the plan for now, we have got trouble." "Right!" The doors to the bridge opened showing 20 brute guards, all equipped with brute shots. "Welcome to my ship, I hope it is up to specs sir." There was only one elite on the bridge, the captain. "I am glade to be shown this courtesy, I am sorry to sound demanding but I need to rest so I want to review you ship logs and current ship armaments please?" The captain pondered for a moment, "As you wish sir!" Two brutes went to the sides of Hunter, "they will show you your quarters that we made for you." Hunter walked out of the chamber and was shown to his quarters, they just happened to be right by the banshee flight deck. "Ok Hunter what do you have is your problem? I mean everything was going according to plan and then you called it off why?" "I will tell you why, Jess. I can handle a couple of elites and grunts but even two or three brutes would kill me easily. My new plan is that you put the ship on lock down and you open me a path right to the main reactor; after placing a couple of explosives I will run to the flight deck, hop into a banshee and you will detonate the explosives." He sat there quietly until Jess spoke up, "and you thought of this all by yourself in that short amount of time?" Hunter looked at her image on his view screen, "yeah, I always have a second plan just incase the first one doesn't go right." "I am impressed, this sounds like something Eric would think up, but if your plan does work they will be in for a big surprise!"

The static continued for about three hours, Eric was getting edgy, "Lets just continue down. I bet you that the covenant prophet is down there with some guards. Let's just welcome them here with a little hello!" Eric pulled out his rocket launcher and reloaded it, Kelly checked her gun and sword that she picked up from a dead elite, "I don't know what it is about swords but they seem to be popular with us Spartan's." The both smirked and walked down the whole, there were bright lights flashing from the end of a hallway that ran for about 300 feet, "well what did I tell you! They are down here, you owe me." The lights from the covenant darkened as they walked down the hall, "Let's follow" the raced after them and stopped and looked around the corner and saw the prophet floating in front of a 15 foot high door that had ancient text written all over it. "Oh no this will be an easy job let's………WHOA, WHOA, WHOA BACK UP!" 10 hunters appeared from a side hall along with a brute; he looked bigger than the normal brute and carried a huge hammer. "You were saying?!" Kelly patted Eric's shoulder as he lied on the ground, "well I didn't see then so I was just going to….. Ah why am I telling you my plan now, we can't do it anyway." Eric stood back up and looked around the corner, the doors slide open and a purple mist flowed out surrounding the group of covenant. The hunters charged in the door and roared, then the prophet and brute walked in slowly, Eric ran after them but before he got there the door slammed shut. "Crap; well what now?" Kelly walked up to a panel that looked like a control panel from a human ship, "this looks like a panel from one of our ships, but extremely outdated." She pushed three buttons and the locks to the door opened, she pressed the open button and the door slide open and a hunter body fell at them from the room. "What the crap is this? What happened to him?" Eric and Kelly walked into the room with their weapons raised, both walked on the sides of the wall, blood was splattered all over the ground, ripped arms laid on the floor, human arms. "What are human body parts doing all the way down here? There were supposed to be no troops down here, stupid Sasha we told him not to bring anyone down because all they are going to do is get killed!" Kelly looked on the floor and saw a helmet lying on the floor, "well whoever they were, they brought a camera along with them. It is strange, though, but this camera looks to be 10 years old." Kelly picked it up and found a video tape. "Can we watch that?" Kelly ejected the tape, "No not now but maybe we will find something up ahead. Look at these weapons," Kelly reached over and picked up a rusty assault rifle, "these were standard issue 1…" "Let me guess ten years ago right?" A loud thud came from the darkness, and then loud breathing, Eric and Kelly turned on their flashlights, "Well this should be interesting!" A liquid puddle came towards them, it was green color; the floor started to rumble and a large foot came smashing down on the floor with a thud. Then a large ten foot giant that looked like a human but a lot uglier. The creature stared at them with the slime dripping out of his mouth, "what is that?" Eric quickly raised his rocket launcher at the thing, "Why don't you ask?" Eric looked at Kelly and then back at the thing, "What are you? Who are you?" The creature gurgled and took a deep breath, "I am Morphius, protector of the shrine of the Lilly. You are the people they call forerunners, I welcome you home master Tidus." He let out a loud roar and lights came out of the walls and shined on the walls. A large door stood behind Morphius, "forerunners? Who are they and why are we not attacked?" "You created this facility and gave life to me and my brothers, but, alas I am the last unless you enter the activation key and restart the cloning facilities. Come with me and I will show you your quarters." "Wait we have questions like why do you call me master Tidus?" Morphius growled, "Answering will come later, for now you must rest. The creatures that came before you have been thrown into isolation chambers." Eric and Kelly walked after him down a long hallway about 100 feet long with com panels at the end of it. Around the bend at the end had a circular room with two beds and regular room equipment, "these are your quarters. You may ask the computer any questions that you have. I must start interrogating the prisoners and return to my guarding duties." Eric and Kelly looked at each other, "was it just me or was that all way to weird and convenient?" Eric looked around the room, "hey this looks like the armory on Reaven!" Eric walked over to the panel, "computer how long has this building been here and who built you?" A sexy female voice came online, "this is human outpost 45-B1, and it was built 4000 years ago by a combination of creatures called covenant and you forerunners." "Whoa, hold on a sec. Explain all of what you just said!"

"Ahem, well this installation was created by a combined effort of covenant and forerunners to try and end there 1000 years of war. After it was finished the races decided to end the war and live in peace and they joined together to form one race, no longer would they consider themselves as enemies but as equals. They lived in peace and prosperity here for 800 years experimenting and creating new creatures such as Morphius. His kind were the protectors here and guarded the entrance to this facility. As human and covenant history both go nothing good lasts forever and the covenant started to secretly arm themselves with weapons and secretly built an orbiting space station, they called it High Charity. The humans caught on to their operations and tried to stop them from destroying all that they had worked for. For 200 years they fought against each other both taking huge casualties and destroying most of this facility. One day the humans developed a super race; it was still human but looked like you. There were 3000 of the elite soldiers, all with super skills and all with armor and super weapons. These men and women destroyed all the covenant land forces on the planet without loosing a single soldier and were just about ready to launch an attack on High Charity when a new enemy arose from the ashes of fallen soldiers. They rose from the spot at which they had fallen and fought again, they looked more like zombies than anything else. The covenant immediately fled from theses creatures and left the humans to handle them. There were grand battles all over the planet that took the lives of 1.4 billion people. The creatures were finally defeated and some vials of their substance were stored on the bottom level. The humans, even though they had won were dying from poisoning that they had spread on the planet to eradicate the enemy. So 4000 years ago the humans all died and this installation has been running itself for all this time. I would have created more of Morphius kind but the last human shut that part of my programming down." Eric and Kelly were both taking off their armor and sat down on their beds, "Well that was a lot of information that I will not be able to remember," they both laughed as they put their armor in lockers on the right side of the room. "What is your name AI?" "My name is Cortana." "Well Cortana can you shut the door and turn down the lights down?" "Yes I can." The door shut and locked, the lights turned down slowly.

Hunter stood up and pulled out his gun, "do it!" The lights turned red and an alarm rang out and echoed down the hall outside his room. There were loud whooshes as the doors closed and his door slammed open, "decompressing all halls and crew areas except where we are." Hunter saw a blinking light appear on the floor and he ran right up to a large door, "there are brutes on the other side with space helmets on. If you can stick them with a grenade that should shatter their helmets." The lights turned off and the doors open, Hunter saw the green lights flashing from their helmets. There were four of them, Hunter fired three shots off and hit each one of them right on their visors. Three light blue flashes went off and blood flew everywhere, then there were growls as they lost their air supply, a few seconds later there was nothing except the heavy breathing of the last brute. Hunter pulled out his sword and stabbed the brute right in the head; it exploded sending brain and blood in every direction, "so that's what their brains look like" Jess said, "Ok no one else on this ship is alive except us." Hunter ran ahead, following the blinking lights, "then why do I feel as if we are being watched by something?" He ran and ran and passed bodies of grunts, elites, hunters; all of them dead. "Two more floors and we are at the main reactors. Wait the door is shut, but I unlocked it earlier?" A heavy beat voice came over the sound system, "I am Death, the AI of this ship; you cannot do anything as long as I am in control!" The locks on the doors clanked shut, "Oh yeah, well I am the AI of this and many other people and here is what I say about you." A loud scream came on and the doors opened, "what did you do to him?" Jess giggled "I found him when I first joined the manifest, I tracked him and set up a deletion trap so that when he first talked to us he would be deleted. Just a little thing I improvised." Hunter shook his head and ran into the power room, he found the power control panel; he leaned over, typed in a shut down sequence, "if you let me do it I can set up a self destruct sequence in a fraction of the time!" "We don't install self destruct options in our ships. You fight to the death, which is the only option." A red light blinked on the panel, "Ok, come back to me and we can leave immediately through the escape pod over there." He felt a presence come back to his head and he ran over and jumped into the pod. He hit the ejection button and the pod flushed out away from the ship, moments later a bright blue light came from the ships engines. Two second later the ship exploded with a bright light. "What did you do?" Hunter smiled, "I told the ships computer that we were going into slip space but I told the exhaust manifolds to close and lock." "So what you did was basically tell the ship to send the fumes from the exhaust to go into the ship causing a heat buildup and then an explosion!" "Pretty much except the explosion was supposed to be bigger, oh well." The pod landed in the flight bay of the captured ship, "well by the explosion we guessed negotiation for their surrender ended good?" Hunter and the marine greeting party all laughed, "How is she? Has she woken up yet?" Hunter asked as he touched a panel allowing Jess to go back into the ship. "She is starting to stir and we have restrained her as you requested, sir!" The marines started to trust Hunter more since he captured an enemy vessel and destroyed another all by himself. "Jess, start downloading all data off this ship and all the specs of this ship right away, I don't think we will be able to keep her for much longer." "Yes Hunter, right away!" Hunter walked out of the docking bay and up to his wife's quarters where she was put, he walked in and saw her lying on a table with a purple light shining on her. She was 6' 2"; she had a slender body like a human super model. Her face was a lot different from the regular elite; she had a mouth that looked human and so did her face; he had always wondered why she looked more human than elite but never got an answer but he really didn't care because he was too much in love. She started to move and opened her eyes, "where am I?" Her groggy voice meant the drug hadn't completely worn off yet. "You are on Vegna in you quarters. I have restrained you so that you wouldn't hurt yourself." "The last thing I remember is you were just about ready to leave here and then you knocked me out. What happened to the other ship?" He looked down at the ground, "you wouldn't, would you? WHY?" She pulled on the restraints but they held her down, "I did it to protect us and the humans." "Why did you betray us, me; do you not love me anymore?" He started to stumble in his words but fell silent for a moment, "No I will always love you but the prophets and their false teachings will only lead us to destruction. That is why I did it; the rings are weapons but weapons that wipe out all sentient life; not just humans but every living thing." He explained everything that happened to him since his capture, how they healed him, gave him weapons, sent him on missions the whole shebang. After he was done there was silence in the room until she spoke up, "I believe you as my husband but as a fellow soldier I just don't know." She started to stumble on her words, "maybe if you give me some time I will think about and tell you my answer." He pressed the release button for the restraints, "I will give you all the time you need, but just so you know I will protect you no matter what." He walked out of the room and she started to cry; the door shut and there were two marines standing outside the door "lock her door and tell me when she wants to talk." "RIGHT" the door locks hissed shut and the soldiers stood at the sides of the door. He walked to the control room and talked to General Sasha. After giving his report Sasha asked him "so does she believe you?" "I don't know I mean I used to be able to know her response before she would say it, but now I…." Sasha reached in his pocket and pulled out a picture of a beautiful woman "this is the woman I gave my heart to years ago. We made a promise that neither of us would get married until I returned, then I would retire as ship captain and we would get married." Hunter looked at the captain "is she still waiting for you?" Sasha put the picture back in his coat pocket "I don't know but I can tell you the most important thing Hunter, it is that true love has no boarders and…..well……don't you have a ship to get ready to destroy?" Hunter understood, "Yes sir, see you soon." Sasha walked over to the com channel, "how long has it been since we have had contact with Eric?"

The lights in the room slowly turned up and Eric started to open his eyes, he rolled over to see if Kelly was still sleeping. When he rolled he found her right beside him, "WHOA!" He rolled off the bed and hit the ground head first; Kelly jumped out of bed and stood up, "well it was cold and I couldn't find anymore blankets so I figured you wouldn't mind." Just as Eric was about to speak Morphius walked into the room, "I am glade you are awake, you have been sleeping for 6 hours and I was beginning to wonder if you would ever get up." Eric and Kelly quickly slipped into their armor, "have you learned anything from the covenant?" The walked out of their room and onto an elevator, the elevator whooshed down and what they saw was amazing. "When the two races lived together they researched vehicles, trying to make the best, the fastest vehicle around. So they developed these…" Lights flashed on and a huge room, about 5000 feet by 6000 feet, which held an arsenal tanks, troop transport vehicles, and a low riding four wheel drive car, it reminded Eric of a hummer that he drove during his training but more like a tank. It was also black, "now that is a lot of cars, who drove all of them?" The elevator stopped and the doors opened to a grimy looking hallway, "you did Tidus, you lead you group of 1000 soldiers into battle, against almost twice your numbers and only lost one or two men. This is where the prisoners are kept, the covenant have changed a lot over the years because when I would capture them before they would just kill themselves but now all they do is try to escape. The one I found in a floating contraption keeps babbling about a great journey and how or something like that." They walked down a grimy hallway until they came to the only cell than had its pulsonic laser bars active. Eric ran up and found one brute and a prophet in the cell, "where are the rest of them Morphius?" Morphius walked up to a panel and touched the security camera button, "it appears they tried to escape by pushing all of themselves through at once. These bars instantly disintegrate anyone that touches them." Morphius turned off the bars; the brute growled and tried to pounce on Eric. Morphius reached out and grabbed him before he got near him, "this one is spunky, he put up the most resistance when I captured him." Eric walked up to the prophet and grabbed his throat, "what are you doing here?" The prophet cleared his throat, "this is an ancient planet with holy relics in it, how dare you set foot in this holy place. You must leave immediately or I'll…." Eric tightened his grip, "or…..you'll…….what? Even if Morphius wasn't here I could still kill you just by tightening my grip. Now TELL ME WHY YOU ARE HERE!" "We are here to extract the holy staff and lead our fleet against you, crushing your defenses and leading our race on their Great Journey." Eric released the prophet and pulled out his sword; in one quick motion he sliced the brute in half, a loud scream rang out through the hallway and then silence. "That is strike one against your insect race, two more and I will destroy you next." Morphius dropped the top half of the brute and turned the bars back on, "you have truly come back master, the enemy never deserves pity." They walked back to the elevator, never saying a word; "hey Eric why did you do that?" Kelly reached over and stopped Eric, "because when reach fell I was helping defend the power generators that powered the Mac guns floating around the planet. Our position was being overrun by the covenant, there was nothing I could do but run into the entrance of the laboratory; when I got inside the bullet prove glass doors shut without me knowing, I tried to open them but they wouldn't budge. I looked through my sniper rifle for any other Spartans that might have made it, I saw Charlie firing his assault rifle until there was nothing left, when he tried to reload it a brute ran up and picked him up by his neck. I tried to talk to him but the only thing he told me was "never forget that we are the top line soldiers. Just find master chief and tell him I died in battle." I watched as the brute threw him to the ground and tore all his limbs off, and then he just walked away. Charlie was still moving, luckily a marine ran by and saw him, the soldier knew that shooting him was the only option left so….that is why I did that because they won't show mercy on us so I won't show any on them." He slammed his fist into the wall, a loud metal clank rang out, and "I understand, let's go and reactivate the cloning facility." Eric looked up and shook his head, they both walked onto the elevator again. It went up to a dimly light room, "computer raise the lights." There was a beep and the light brightened to show a room filled with Cryo tubes; Cortana appeared on the pedestal in the center of the room, "there are 700 tubes all able to hold a life form as small as a grunt and as big as Morphius. We can produce 700 soldiers every 12 hours and our weapons factory is able to provide at the same rate. We get our resources and energy from the mantle layer of this planets crust, in case you were wondering." Eric walked up to one of the five panels around the pedestal, he punched in the library of what they could create, "can you take Kelly and me and make an army of Spartans?" Cortana turned from a cool blue to red for a moment as she calculated, "yes I can but unlike you these people won't have to have titanium implanted into them. See compared to what I read off you armors history achieves our technology is far more advanced." Kelly and Eric stuck their arms into sampler machines, a quick hiss and the sample was taken, "it will be about one hour before we are ready to start production." "Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Kelly thought as she tapped her helmet, "I am going to go down to the bottom level and take a look at that sample Cortana was talking about." She snuck out of the room as Eric was typing in commands, "where are you going?" Morphius walked right in front of the door, "I am going to look at that sample that was taken by you down on level 51, why?" Morphius looked at her and moved to her side, "then you will need me. No one has been down there since the last human died and I have heard noises down there but have been to busy to go down." They walked out of the room and the door closed behind them, he stopped Kelly and put her on his shoulder "my brother was the last one to go down there, actually, about 300 years ago. He and I heard the machines down there turn on so he went down there to investigate the noises. I am not sure what happened to him but the noises went quiet but he never came up." Kelly started to worry and she quickly checked her armor and weapons; they walked up to the elevator and walked inside, the elevator zoomed as it went down 50 floors until it stopped on floor 51. The doors whooshed open and a white smoke rolled inside, "well the lights still work down here at least" Kelly said as she hopped off Morphius's shoulder and walked out of the elevator "what is the layout of the room Morph?" "There is a hallway that has glass for walls, it extends for 25 feet and then comes to the sample collection point. Cortana, how many specimens are in stock?" "There are approximately 2.5 million specimens in stock. I have activated my motion tracker and heat sensor and I am seeing nothing down with you, everything looks calm." "Well just in case….." Kelly loaded a round into her rifle; they walked down the hallway and found a pile of bones from something big, "what are those from?" Morphius walked up and picked up the skull from the pile, "it appears to have been my brother" he looked at the door to the lab and saw dents all over the door. Kelly walked up to the door and inspected the dents, "these dents were made from the inside!" "That means my brother stood guard to make sure whatever is inside didn't get out…." The door slide open and a green haze flowed out, Kelly turned her flashlight on and walked inside, "bringing on the lights" Cortana said and the lights flickered on showing rows and rows of vials, each containing a specimen. "There is a computer station to your left, you can tell it to bring you whatever vile you want." Kelly walked over and pulled up an inventory list of the last specimens taken, "let's see; Utompitra virus, Larvangeous disease, "bug thingy"? They sure were specific about its name." She hit the retrieve button and a robotic arm came down and grabbed a green vile from the last row. Kelly grabbed the vile and inspected it closely, the stuff inside moved, "ok; now that is gross!" According to these records it was taken right before the last human died. What did he die of Morphius?" He scratched his head, "all I remember is that one day he started to cough and his right arm turned green, I thought he developed gang green so I put him in bed and tried to help him get better. Three days later he died; I buried the body and returned two hours later with a grave marker. When I got there I found the grave un-dug and the body gone." Kelly was startled and quickly typed in commands to Cortana, "yes, I have a complete copy of every specimen on archives. Why?" Kelly pulled out a time bomb, "whatever this thing it is loose and running about down here. If this thing is what I believe it is the only way to get ride of it is to blow it up." She placed the bomb on the ground and typed in five minutes. "That should give us enough time to……" she stopped talking and heard a creaking noise come from the ceiling, "oh crap!" Part of the roof fell and crashed to the floor, when the dust settled she saw green creatures fall from the hole, "the Flood is here, get going Morphius I will hold them off as long as I can!" She fired an explosive round into the three Flood sending there bodies flying. The Flood just kept falling from the hole 5….15….29, they just kept coming and she kept firing. She ran out of rounds and tried to reload but two Flood jumped and pinned her to the ground. "So, is this it?" She closed her eyes and saw her life flash before her eyes; training in the Spartan program, fighting with Eric and Master Chief on Reach. She felt the Flood as they pounded her armor; she knew the end was near.

Hunter walked into his quarters that he made and took his helmet off; he tapped the display screen on and turned on his favorite music. A light blinked at the bottom of the screen, he paused the music and touched the light; his wife's face appeared. He put his hand up to the screen; she spoke first "I have been trying to find you but these humans kept sending me all over the ship." He smiled, "have you made a decision yet?" She smiled to and put her hand up to his, "I believe you, but I don't trust these humans but I will trust you." "Believe me the humans don't always trust me either. Trent and George you may unlock the door and return to you posts. I will send your weapons to you, and then you can join me on the bridge." She smiled again, "thanks, I will tell you now that they are sending another fleet here! The prophet down on the planet has been sending sub space messages to High Charity that the humans are here. Unlike you, I listen to what people say." They smiled and the screen turned off, "Hunter, message from Eric!" Hunter ran to the bridge, "patch him through," Eric appeared with the libratory behind him, "Hunter long time no see, this is what the covenant were looking for…." He proceeded to explain what happened, "you see with this lab they can create an army that can wipe out all human life." "Eric, Visha has told me that the prophet you have is sending messages back to the covenant and has told them of our presence. Get the AI and all the information you can get and destroy that facility." Eric tilted his head, "are you in command now? I mean what if we can turn this facility to our advantage?" "No I am not in command but if they get hold of that place they can destroy everything." "Understood, see you in two hours." The screen flickered off, "did you get all that General Sasha?' Sasha picked up his wine glass from his desk, "yes I did, I will inform the fleet, prepare your surprise attack. If you want you can send Visha over for safety. I am pulling out squads A and C, leaving you B with 25 men and Jessica." "Roger!"

The Flood pounded on Kelly's armor, "this is it." A loud roar came from the door and the flood around Kelly fell to pieces, "RUN KELLY!" Morphius jumped between Kelly and the Flood, "no, not without you, that bomb is going to go in 2 minutes." Morphius picked up the bomb, "leave so my suffering may end." Kelly ran to the door and looked back right in time to see him get dragged to the ground. She locked the door shut and ran to the elevator; a slight rumble ran through the hall. She hopped into the elevator and pushed the up button; flames came racing through the hall and reached the door right as it closed. The elevator jumped as it went up and jerked down when it stopped, the door opened and she ran up to Eric, "Eric, the Flood they are on this planet! We need to get out of here now." Eric turned around and looked at her, and then he turned around to the control panel, "Cortana, when can we leave?" Her slender figure appeared on the pedestal, "in two minutes, the power collector, which is located on the mantle layer, will explode sending lava shooting up through this facility. I have also prepped one tumbler and a troop transport vehicle." "Good prepare to join me in the launch bay number 1. Kelly, let's go!" They ran to the elevator and pressed the docking bay button, the doors slide open and Eric ran to the launch control panel by the transport, "download and let's get out of here." The launch doors open on the ceiling and the transport ship started to hover with a gurgling sound, dirt fell from the door. Eric felt a presence in his head, "ah it feels good to have something fill the emptiness in my head." Kelly laughed as she hopped into the pilots seat, "We can leave right now," Eric walked up the loading bay and closed the door, "do it!" The ship rumbled off the flight deck and quickly rose up the bay door, Eric jumped into the tumbler and buckled in. "So you know this vehicle has 2 guass turrets and one rocket launcher and can run at a top speed of 75 MPH." The ship roared away with a trail of white smoke, a bright red flash came from the facility and lava erupted from the launch bay. The lava rose 50 feet into the air and slowly made a mountain of hot lava, "well that should take care of the facility now shouldn't it?" Kelly pulled the ship high into the atmosphere and headed towards Vegna. Eric sat back into his seat, "mission complete, now what's up next?"

Visha walked onto the bridge of the Vegna and saw Hunter sitting in the captains' chair, "hello Hunter," She walked up to him. "Well I glad to see you with your weapons. I am sorry to cut our meeting short but I am sending you to the human ship Reaven for safety. My General will escort you to my quarters and you can wait there until I get back." She looked at him right in the eyes, "I am still captain of this ship and if you are going to crash my ship allow me to do it." Hunter stood up and walked over to her and pulled out a syringe, "well, you leave me no choice then." He slowly walked over to her, "if you are going to knock me out again you have another thing coming…..to….." There was a small hiss and she fell into his arms, "why is it women are always so stubborn?" He handed her to two marines and they carried her out of the bridge, "I told her before that I will keep her out of harms way, so why does she not listen to me?" three marines laughed as they sat down in gunner, navigation and communication posts, "well, sir, women are known for there stubbornness. Take my wife for example, I told her I was shipping out for training and then go into space for two years. She told me 'no you are not and I you think I approve you guessed wrong.' So what did I do? I told her see her in two years and that I loved her." "This is squad A and C ready to depart to Reaven." Hunter tapped the comm. Channel, "permission to leave, granted. See you guys later!" "Give them hell sir," a slight tremor as the three pelicans detached from the ships hull and roared away. "Sir, message from Eric, he says that he will meet us in 55 seconds." A small dot appeared from the planets' surface and got bigger, Hunter opened the bay doors and the ship glided in. "Eric and Kelly are heading to the bridge now captain," the doors on the bridge hissed open and two figures stood at the entrance, "Hunter long time," he walked up to Hunter and shook his hand, "I have an AI I would like you to meet. Cortana this is Hunter, Hunter Cortana." A small projector beam appeared from Eric's flashlight, "good to meet you Hunter!" He nodded his head, "If you want you can join the ships computer and get acquainted with Jessica, the Reavens AI." Eric touched a panel and felt her presence leave him, "oh man now all there is is empty space again!" The three of them laughed, Hunter told them their battle strategy for the upcoming fight, "I will pilot this ship with 25 marines and Jessica leading the fleet, you and Kelly and Cortana will go onto the Reaven and get instructions from Sasha on your secret mission. The Mercury will act as our early warning system and regroup with us after enemy confirmation." "I see well I guess we should get going then." Eric touched the panel again and felt Cortana rejoin him, he and Kelly walked off the bridge. After 15 minutes of flying they landed in the Reavens launch bay, "good to see you Eric and Kelly! I heard you got us a new AI?" She joined with the ship and immediately took control of major systems, "I see why you guys are feared by the covenant….oops sorry, hello my name is Cortana from the former planet Peace installation. If you don't mind I will take control of all major systems and run anomalies checks." "Wow only been here two minutes and she has already taken over my ship. Oh well that's AI for you, always working on something." Sasha escorted them to the bridge, "ok here is the plan. Hunter will take the Vegna and lead the fleet into the battle with us following, we are going to let Hunter make first contact and we will be orbiting on the other side of the planet. When he gets 2000 miles away he will turn around and fire and we will run right into the middle of their fleet and launch barrages on their fleet. Cortana will be giving up-to-date information to the fleet and will control the movements of this ship. Meanwhile, you and Kelly will circle around the battle in the drop ship you brought and dive right into the biggest ship there, take over the ship and use it to fire on the fleet." "Sounds like a good plan but according to my calculations there is only a 25 chance of success." Sasha looked at the map of the solar system, "well we have two options. One, we can stay here and fight and get destroyed or two, we can run and show them the direct path to earth and all of humanity will be destroyed. Which would you prefer?" "Well I personally think we should meet them head on before they even reach this sector and surprise them, but either way we will have to fight them." "Sir message from Mercury, we have engaged the covenant fleet in sector 2-5-8 and are engaging! We won't be able to hold them off long and have sent all unnecessary personal to you, this will be our last transmission so goodbye and good luck!" The message broke up in static, "show me the overview of the battle," the screen showed the count of ships. "60 covenant ships! The last fleet had only 29 ships." Sasha fell into his chair, "prepare to go and help Mercury, we'll hyperspace jump right into the battle and surprise them." Eric walked up and slammed his hand down on the captain's chair, "but what about our original plans?" "I will not allow one of our ships to be attacked when we can help him. Let's go!" The fleet turned with Hunter at the head of them, a loud rumble and the fleet disappeared in a bright flash. A pelican flew past the bridge of a covenant cruiser and fired its rockets into the bridge, blue explosions rippled over the ship and the shields flickered. "How many are left?" "Sir there are 42 ships left and we have lost 50 pelicans so far." The Mercury flew straight into the covenant formation firing all of its' guns, the covenant fleet returned fire and purple shots slammed into the Mercury, "major damage on decks 127 through 255, decks have been sealed off. Engines are down to 50 capacity." The bridge shook, "SIR, covenant boarding crafts are locking on to the hull…." "Intruder alert, intruder alert." The captain picked up his rifle, "all right all you green horns we've got enemies here and they need to be taught a lesson. Launch all pelicans and stand your ground!" Mercury fired another barrage and one capital ship exploded as 15 shot slammed into it. A big bright flash appeared in the middle of the battle and the fleet appeared, "Mercury we are here for the party, can we join?" "Permission granted help if you'd like," there was a banging noise over the comm., "oh god they are braking through, self destruct in 10 seconds, evacuate the ship!" An alarm rang over the comm., Sasha looked at the Mercury on the view screen; little escape pops popped off the hull and headed for the Reaven. 12 more covenant boarding craft locked on but right after they latched the Mercury exploded and bow of the ship crashed and destroyed a covenant cruiser. "How many escaped?" "500 men sir, but the captain went down sir." The fleet split apart and each attacked their own sector, "Cortana take over" the Reaven roared into the middle of the battle and fired all of its rounds, "all pelicans are off the flight deck and are attacking, all ships move to the right fleet and fire at the covenant command ship." Hunter flew straight behind the fleet "they aren't even firing at us Hunter" "Of course we are all one big happy covenant fleet, fire at the nearest ship." Vegna charged its main guns till they were glowing with plasma, the plasma flew right into the covenant cruiser next to them and broke the ship into to pieces, "now they know!" Shots of plasma flew at Vegna but Jessica moved the ship to evade, "firing" another round shot at two other cruisers, they bursted into blue flames and crashed into each other. "This is Hunter heading back to rejoin the fleet." The Ranger rushed ahead of everyone else and took the brunt of the covenant fire, "sir the Ranger has 75 structural damage, they have…." the Ranger blew into pieces. 12 ships were left for the humans, they flew over to the coordinates, "FIRE," molten steel flew from every direction and flew right into the command ship; the shields shimmered and then disappeared. "Sir Look, they are joining together to do something." Sasha ran over to the strategy table; Cortana shouted "All pelicans and escape pods fly to us and prepare for slip-space jump. They are readying all their cannons for simultaneous fire, it will completely destroy everyone!" Little flashes popped on the screen, a bright blue light appeared in front of the covenant fleet, "slip-space jump in seven seconds, and the enemy barrage in 6 seconds we won't make it." The human fleet turned away and prepped their engine, a bright flash came from behind them, and a wall of plasma flew towards the fleet, "NOW!" the Reaven and Vegna ships disappeared in a bright flash, but the rest of the fleet were hit by the plasma and were instantly vaporized. "Sir the fleet didn't make it; we are all that's left." Eric walked up to Sasha who was by the comm. System, "Sir, they died a good death; at least we made it out to give a complete account of what we found. Besides we weren't supposed to make it this far anyway." Sasha quickly turned around, "what did you say?" Kelly walked up right beside Eric, "before I left earth the General of the supreme council told me 'the mission you are leaving for is a suicide mission. But the only hope for success is the resourceful General Sasha, which is why he is in charge of the fleet.'" "I am leaving for my quarters; tell me when we make it out of slip-space." Sasha walked off the bridge, "way to go Eric! I told you we shouldn't have told him until after we made it back to earth." Eric ran after Sasha and caught him in the elevator, "Sasha I am sorry, and I know I shouldn't have told you until we returned to earth but I figured you needed to know." Sasha reached into his pocket and pulled out the now crumpled picture, "that's fine, but I wonder why they sent me on a suicide mission without telling me? That's not suicide, that's murder. The difference between suicide and murder is that suicide you kill yourself but murder is someone killing you." The elevator doors opened, "I will be in my quarters until somebody needs me. Stay on the bridge and…..well, do something constructive." He walked out and turned into his quarters; Eric went back to the bridge and sat in the captain's chair, all stations report." "2 damage to outer hull, 69 of our pelican fleet have returned and 30 pelicans from Mercury made it also. 2000 marine survivors were rescued and we lost 200 men sir." Kelly walked over to Eric, "Hunter has come over to check on things here, I have order 400 soldiers sent over to Vegna and Cortana has downloaded everything she got from the installation into the computer memory banks. Do you think Hunters' wife is going to cloud his judgment?" "What do you mean?" "Well I have noticed in regular human life that the man gets distracted when his wife is nearby. So I was wondering if you thought that would happen to Hunter." "I don't know he is not like regular people, for all we know covenants don't get distracted at all." Hunter walked into his quarters on the Reaven where Visha was waiting; she walked up to him with a mad look on her face, "why is it when you want me to do something you just knock me out? Like when you wanted to leave for high charity training you just knocked me out and walked out." "Well like most covenant females I know I won't win a fight so the only way to win is to knock you out." "Well while I have been stuffed in this room I have been looking on your past missions. I have got to say I think the humans give you too much leeway, but why do you want to help them?" "I fight for the humans because the prophets are leading us to destruction. I have tried explaining what the prophets are doing to my brothers but they don't believe me, so the only way to get it through their heads is to fight against them." She reached over and turned off the display screen, "well I am tired of reading your history so, if you don't mind I am going to take a look around this ship." "Yeah, go ahead," he stepped aside and let her pass. She stopped right in front of Hunter and kissed him, "thanks for saving me" she walked out the door and headed towards the elevator. Hunter lied down on his bed and took a deep breath, "well at least my wife is not mad at me." He shut his eyes and fell asleep.

Sasha typed into the computer, "No one ever saw it coming, the entire fleet destroyed except for us and the captured covenant ship Vegna. But even after this I wonder why does the government wants me dead. Eric told me I was put in charge of this fleet because the top General wants me dead. He told Kelly that this mission was suicide and that the success rate was 2, all he told me was that with my expertise we should make it. I might not make much sense but right now I am frustrated with how this mission went. I wanted to make sure everyone got out alive, and what happened? Everyone got killed; now, since we are all that's left, we are going to head towards outpost 21 for rearming and medical attention. Maybe if we are lucky the covenant won't be able to chase us but knowing the covenant they might just catch up with us in slip-space. This is the end of my report." Sasha leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes; he hummed a little song, Nickleback Photograph, and slowly fell asleep. Visha walked down the main hallway and wound up in front of the bridge, she walked inside and saw Eric sitting in the captains chair "hey Eric can I ask you a question?" Eric jumped and fell out of hi chair, he quickly stood to attention "no sir I wasn't asleep on duty I was just….Oh it you Visha what was your question?" Visha laughed, "I wanted to ask you a question!" "Oh ok I have a question from you too," "you do? You ask first then." "Uh ok why do you look more human than elite, I mean you look pretty for an elite but something about you looks human." "Well when my parents were going to conceive me they were chosen to have their child be part of an experiment. The experiment was to make an elite child look human so they Prophets could send them into human controlled territory and get all the information they could. They genetically changed me while I was inside my mother to look like a human female, but it was not complete so they would have to alter my DNA again when I was two earth years old. By the time I turned two the program was shut down by the discovery of the forerunner and I was thrown to the way side. So now I have the ability to look human or elite whichever I want but only for a short time. Does that answer your question?" "Yes it does, now what is your question?" "Well, did Hunter ever talk to you about me when you went on a mission?" "Oh don't get me started about Hunter when we first found him. When we found him he was semi-conscience and was mumbling your name and wouldn't shut up, so all I got to listen to all the way back to earth was Visha…Visha… oh did it get annoying after a while so I finally reached over and held his mouth shut. After he recovered and started to go on missions with me he would mention that he had a mate he wanted to see but knew he wouldn't ever see her again. After that mission though he wouldn't say anything but instead he would close his eyes, but I could tell he was thinking about something. But he didn't say anything until you we found you, that is really it." "Thanks, now is there anything you would like me to do?" "Well," he pointed to the captain's chair, "you could watch over things here while I go to my room and take a short nap." She shook her head and sat down in the chair, "I can see why you humans like chairs so much, they are comfortable." Eric walked off the bridge and went down the armory where his make-shift quarters were, he sat down on his bed and took off his armor, "oh man I am going to have to clean my armor, the blue barely shows up!" he put his suit together and hung it up in a chamber and closed the door, he heard water whooshing around inside. He lied down on his bed and closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Eric ran down a dimly light hallway, Jessica appeared in the corner of his visor "they are on the other side of that door. Hurry before we are too late!" He threw a grenade at the door and fell to the ground, an explosion went off and the steel doors fell. He quickly stood up and ran into the room and pulled his gun to his shoulder, he looked around the room and saw Hunter, Visha, Sasha and Kelly kneeling on the floor with gun pointed to the back of their heads. A dark figure appeared on the main screen, "so you finally made it Master Tidus?" There were 10 people standing there holding the guns to his friends head, all of them Spartans. "If you put your gun down you and your friends might make it through alive, if you don't you will all die" The men cocked their guns, "ok I will," Eric dropped his rifle and kicked it away, three Spartans walked up to him and restrained him. "Well, well I guess you Spartans have a soft spot for your friends," the ten Spartans pulled off their helmets and dropped them to the floor, they all looked like Eric! "What the…..they look just like me, but how?" "Oh you men are all the same charge in head first and ask questions later. This time things are different, do it." The Spartans shook their heads, Hunter got shot right in the head and fell to the ground, a purple pool of blood formed around him. Visha began to cry but stopped when she head a gunshot and felt dizzy, she fell on her back and gave a long sigh. Next Kelly was shot right in the neck and immediately fell to her side and gasped for air, but finally took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Sasha was shot four times in the back and fell on his face, he rolled over and took quick breaths, "Eric….whatever you do…….never….surrende….." Sasha closed his eyes and his head hit the ground. "Why….why….." "You still don't get it do you, you did this to everyone. You were so caught up on me an ancient AI, but AIs' can loose their minds just like everyone else. Goodbye Eric, goodbye." One of the Spartans picked up Eric's rifle and pointed it to Eric's' head, the last this he heard was a gun shot and then nothing.

"No, no, nooooo……." Eric breathed heavily as he sat up in his bed, "it was all a dream, just a dream." He wiped the sweat from his forehead and sat on his bed, "but it all seamed so real," footsteps walked up to his tent, "who's there?" The curtain pulled open and Kelly appeared, "Eric what's wrong, I heard screaming?" "It's nothing; I just had a bad dream. Hunter, Sasha, Visha and you were all there; Cortana went crazy and killed everyone and told me I killed them." "Well maybe we should have Cortana run a test on herself, just to be safe. We still have 14 hours before we reach the outpost." "Eric agreed and put his armor on and went to the bridge, "Cortana will you run a complete diagnostic on yourself?" "Right away," Cortana went offline and came back on ten seconds later, "I have found no major errors except for one." "What is it?" "I don't know, it appears to have happened within the last three years. It is not major and will not infect any of my systems." "Hmm…" Eric rubbed his helmet and clicked on a private comm. To Kelly, "I still don't trust her, tell Sasha about my dream and tell the crew of Vegna to be on high alert. Even though my dream didn't have Vegna in it there still might be something going on over there." Kelly shook her head and walked off the bridge, "Well then I guess I will go and see Hunter, see you later Cortana." Kelly walked to Sashas' quarters and knocked on the door, "come in," Kelly walked in and saw Sasha sitting at his desk. "Sir I have something I need to tell you something." Sasha hit a button on his computer and leaned back in his chair, "what is it?" "Well sir Eric had a disturbing dream where Cortana went crazy and killed everyone, including him." Sasha pulled out his pistol and shoved it into his jacket, "don't tell Eric about this or I will never here the end of it, besides I am only taking it for safety reasons." Cortana came on the comm. "Sir, I need you on the bridge." Sasha looked straight over at Kelly and then walked out of his room, Kelly pushed a button on her leg and a panel popped out, there was a sub-machine gun in a holster "you're not the only one." She cocked a round in and holstered it again.

Sasha walked onto the bridge and saw Hunter and Visha standing by the main screen, "what are you guys doing here?" "We don't really know! Cortana called us here saying that you needed us." Sasha walked to the door but it wouldn't open, "what the? What is going on?" Cortana appeared on the pedestal and 10 men walked in, they were Spartans, "Well you see Sasha the covenant were the last people to give orders to me not humans and they told me to infiltrate the humans someday and get all the information I could get and then report back to them whenever I could. You humans couldn't have made it any easier not only did you let me control your ship but you captured a covenant craft that I can fly back with and report. Thank you for all your hard work," the Spartans walked over and tied up Hunter and Visha and took their weapons. Sasha quickly pulled out his pistol and fired, the shot hit one of the Spartans helmet, cracking it right in the forehead and slamming through the mans head. He fell on his knees and then on his face, two other Spartans ran over to Sasha and restrained him, "now…now Sasha we must not go and have senseless killing." One man pulled the gun out of Sashas' hand and threw it across the room, "now call Kelly onto the bridge without her helmet, tell her it's for research reasons." Sasha tapped his comm. "Kelly come to the bridge without your helmet, we need you for testing, bring Eric along with you. We might need data to compare yours too." "Right, I am on my way." The two men walked Sasha to his chair and tied him down, they walked back into the shadows where they came from. Minutes later the doors opened and in walked Eric and Kelly, Eric took a quick look around, "it's my dream, NOOOOO!" He quickly pulled out his pistol but three Spartans jumped on top of him, two other Spartans restrained Kelly and pushed her up against the wall, "now I know Eric knows what is going to happen so I will inform the rest of you." "How did you know?" "Well I put that dream inside you when I was with you, I wanted to see what you would do with the information but as I thought you did nothing. Oh well what can I expect from mere mortals." She shook her head at the Spartans and they removed their helmets, most of them looked like Eric but other looked like Kelly, "what the….what are they doing looking like that?" "Well you see when you wanted to clone yourselves I told you I could produce 700 men in 12 hours but truthfully I can produce 200 every hours." More Spartans appeared out of the dark, a grand total of 19 men, "I brought 20 men over with me but left 180 over on Vegna. They have all ready taken over and are waiting for my orders; I didn't kill you men though. They are tied up inside the troop transport ship, why else do you think I readied that ship instead of one of the others faster ships." Eric screamed in rage and stood up, shoving the Eric look a likes off his back, and he quickly pulled out a plasma sword and tore open the stomach of one Spartan and cut off the head of the other. The bodies slammed into the ground, Kelly shoved her elbow into the helmet of one man and crunched the helmet of the other with her hand. She reached down and pulled out the machine gun and shot the last man touching here, "don't you ever touch me there again!"

Eric ran over and cut Hunter and Visha free, "15 more to go," He lunged at two men instantly knocking them over, they punched him but he stabbed the one man in the throat and crushed the head of the other with a bone shattering punch. Kelly ran to Sasha and shot the two holding him down in the head and knocked their bodies away, "come on Sasha I thought you could handle them easily," Sasha laughed and picked up his pistol, three Kelly look a likes ran towards Kelly and pushed her to the floor, right as they were going to shoot her three gun shots went off and they fell over with holes in the sides of their heads. Sasha dropped the clip out of his pistol and slammed in a fresh one, "come on Kelly I thought you could handle them easily." Kelly jumped up, Hunter backed into a corner with Visha behind him, and five men surrounded them and pushed them into a corner, Hunter roared and lunged at them, he grabbed the head of one and slammed it into the ground, Visha roared as she ripped the head off one and threw his head at the nearest Spartan, he fell to the ground and shook his head. She walked over and picked the man up, "WARG," she threw him across the room, he landed on a panel and sparks flew everywhere. Hunter tore apart the other two men in front of him. Eric made a quick twist around a man and stabbed the man in the back "you won't get me, I will ge…." He was stopped when he saw silver metal rush by his face, Eric fell back and grabbed his helmet, "my face, my fa…." He saw his visor was cracked and saw blood trickle down from his forehead; he slowly fell forward and slammed into the ground. Sasha looked over and saw the last enemy Spartan standing over Erics' body and drew out a pistol, pointing it right at Eric. Sasha quickly ran over and walked right in front of the gun, right as he did the man pulled the trigger. The shot slammed into his chest and went right through, Sasha quickly aimed his gun right at the mans head and pulled the trigger, the man fell backwards and fell on top of his buddies bodies. Sasha pulled up his hand to his face; he saw blood on his finger tips, he laughed and then passed out.

"You people fought very good, but not good enough. I have already transferred to Vegna and have started the engines, you can't stop me. I am invinc…." Cortanas' voice broke up and Jessica over lapped "not if I can help it" the lights on the bridge turned on and the Vegnas' engines turned off. "Well if I can't take this ship my men will take it, you can't stop m…." "I know we can't stop you, blah blah blah." Escape pods popped off Vegnas' hull and jetted towards space "oh no you don't!" Vegnas' plasma turrets turned bright purple and then fired at the pods, little bright explosions flashed in the blackness of space. "Well that takes care of them now doesn't it?" Kelly walked over to Eric and Sasha, What happened, how did you…" "Cortana has been destroyed and all her memories have been safely stored. I knew what she was doing from the moment I met her but kept it quiet, I allowed her to take control of Reaven so I would control her escape routes. She was going to destroy the Reaven and run away in Vegna, but as you can see she can't do that now." Kelly checked out Sasha and Kelly, "they are hurt bad, take them to the doctor!"

Hunter and Visha carried Sasha and Kelly carried Eric, the walked out of the bridge and went as fast as they could to the med bay, four nurses ran to them with stretchers and took Eric to one room and Sasha to the emergency room. The doctor walked out, Hunter walked over to him "what can we do to help?" "You can go away; I don't need people looking over my shoulder. I will call you when I am finished." Hunter walked away and went back to the bridge; Visha and Kelly were cleaning up the bodies off the bridge while other soldiers were cleaning the blood off the walls and consoles "how is he Eric, will he make it?" "The doctor doesn't know, he told me to leave and he'd call me when things were ok." Hunter walked to his chair and sat down and started ship wide scans for any problems "Jessica, transfer over here and do ship wide scans to see if Cortana has done anything to us." "Right, be there in five minutes." Hunter grabbed his side and groaned, he stood up and walked to his quarters and lied down. "Well I thought no one could ever get me but I was wrong." He pulled his hand up and noticed the tips of his fingers were covered in blood, he pressed the call button and a nurse appeared on the screen. "Yes Hunter, how may I help you?" "Come down right away with a med kite, I cut myself." She nodded and the screen went blank, he closed his eyes to try and take away the pain. Two minute later the nurse walked in and went over to his bed "where did you get hit?" "Right in my side" she reached in her bag and pulled out a laser and bio-foam "oh that will only take a second!" She burned the wound shut and sprayed disinfectant over it, and then she finished it by spraying all over with bio-foam. "Ok, that should do it. Now is there anything else you need?" "Yeah some peace and quietness if you don't mind." She nodded her head and walked out of the room; he lay in bed and began to sleep. Kelly and Visha finished cleaning up the bridge and started to walk to the med room when Kelly stopped "hey Visha, don't you think you should check on Hunter?" "Why?" "Well he seemed to be in pain or something, go and check on him while I check on Sasha and Eric." "Ok" she walked down the hall and into Hunters room and found him asleep on his bed. She walked over to him and picked up his hand and found his cut wound, she laughed to herself "you big dope why didn't you tell me?" She lied down beside him and fell asleep with him.

Kelly walked into the waiting room right when the doctor walked out of the emergency room "how are they?" "General Sasha is alright and will be regaining consciousness in three hours; the shot barely missed his heart and spine so he is one lucky man. Eric, on the other hand, is a different story" "how so?" "Well it appears that a knife cut his visor and his face, it looked like a simple fix with little scars on his face. When I took off his helmet and made a deeper survey of the damage I found that there were knife fragment left in the wound. I scanned the pieces and discovered that it contained Conium Maculatum and Cicuta Virosa, or poison hemlock and water hemlock both are very poisonous. I could normally cure such diseases but it appears to have been changed somehow." Kelly slapped herself on the face "Cortana must have used the laboratory on Peace to chemically alter it. Damn her." "Well I have managed to stop the bleeding but the infection is slowly spreading through his head, I give him about 20 hours. He is conscious and I have released him." Just then Eric walked out of the emergency room and walked up to Kelly, his helmet in his hand "how are you Eric?" "Well besides the fact I am going to die I have never been better, how is Sasha doing?" "He is fine but won't be able to do anything for 3 hours." Eric shook his head and walked towards the bridge "well let's go and see if there is anything for me to do before I die huh."

As Kelly and Eric waited for the elevator he pulled his helmet up and inspected the crack across the visor where the blade slashed through "Well not only am I going to die but I don't have a helmet to wear when it happens. My luck is so rotten I bet Jessica would calculate me as a 100 bad luck person, my life…." Kellys' hand flew up from her side and slapped him across his face "what is your problem? You never complained this much in any mission we have ever been on so why now do you choose to start moaning and groaning?" He rubbed his cheek "in all those missions I knew I could die unless I fight and tried to live but now I cant even look death in the face and say 'how you doin?'" The elevator doors opened and they walked inside, they were both silent even as they walked onto the bridge. Hunter and Visha were standing by the strategy map and talking with Jessica, "well people we've got problems" Hunter said as he walked towards Kelly and Eric. Eric smirked "I know. I know I am going to die so that problem is now solved." "Well that was not quit it but thanks for letting us know. The true problem is that the covenants second fleet will be upon us in 12 hours and Jessica has discovered that before Cortana left she melted the coolant doors shut so that when we try a slip space jump we would explode." "Clever," Kelly said as she leaned on a support beam in the middle of the room, "after she took off in the Vegna we would give chase just like anyone else would. Thus we die!" Eric clapped his hands "very good, you sounded like Shakespeare." They laughed and walked over to the strategy map and Visha pulled out a laser pointer, "ok, by now they have gotten the hint that Vegna is no longer under Covenant control. So I will take a squad of Helljumpers to Vegna and control that ship, meanwhile Hunter will control this ship and launch every pelican you've got. Kelly and Eric, your job is to get control of one of the cruisers and launch an assault with that ship. After that we will have to improvise." Eric set his helmet down on a 1 foot square, black tile right beside Jessica's pedestal "can you fix it?" "No problem, give me one second…." A robotic arm came from the side of the pedestal and a needle poked out of the top. The needle rose right to the tip of the crack and sprayed out a water-type liquid, the crack started to disappear and finally vanished, "there you go, all done." Eric picked up his helmet and put it on, his visor blinked on and his shield bar displayed "a whole lot better than what I was seeing a minute ago." "So how is it Eric?" Kelly opened up a private channel "better, at least I have one good thing to look forward to" "what's that?" "I will have a good helmet to die with" there was silence for a few moments then Hunter walked over to them "Eric; you have been my friend since they found me and have helped me through many problems. Now it is my time to help you, there is a ship called Avian. It was built as a capital ship but instead it was changed to be a massive destroyer, she has triple shields and three massive plasma cannons and most of all it has some kind of super weapon." "What kind of weapon?" "Visha doesn't know but it is able to wipe out any living life form within a 400 parsec radius, or the earth solar system" "wow but how will we get inside?" Hunter laughed and Eric scratched his helmet "what is so funny?" "Visha told me that this ship is so big there is a hole in each layer of the shields big enough for an escape pod to get through. They align in a row for 5 seconds, just long enough for two escape pods to slide through." "Oh how peachy, these missions I have been on in the past few days seem to be too easy. First fighting on Peace seemed too easy, and then escaping the outpost, last and most suspicious was fighting those SPARTAN clones. If they truly were clones of me and Kelly then they should have our abilities like speed and so forth, but they acted stupid and were too easy to kill except for the last one that got me." Visha walked over to Hunter "well they did seem stupid but maybe they just got your brain and Kellie's strength." They all laughed the doctors face appeared on the main screen "Hunter and Eric, the general is awake and wants you two." "Roger, we are on our way" the screen went blank "why wouldn't he just come to the bridge instead of calling for us?" Eric shrugged his shoulders and they walked to the elevator.

Three minutes later they were at the entrance to the medic lab, Hunter looked at Eric's tense arm "you shouldn't be so tense you know? Too much straining and u might get a cramp!" Eric just kept looking forward. The doctor opened the doors and let them in Eric snapped to attention "how is Sasha doing doctor?" The doctor laughed "well if I tried to keep him off his bridge for just one more minute I think he would have put me in a cryo tube by now!" Hunter smirked "that sounds like the Captain alright." The doctor waved them over to the recovery section of the ER where Sasha was running the treadmill "HELLO BOYS!!" Sasha jumped off the treadmill and landed on the deck with a thud, immediately grabbing his side "Captain!" Eric went over and helped Sasha to a bench "you should take it easy don't cha think?" "Na I feel like I'm back in my 20's!" The doctor leaned over to Sasha with an injection "now Sasha you are allowed to return to the bridge as long as you promise not to get too excited. This injection only helps the pain and…" Sasha stood up "yeah, yeah I know it's up to me to let my body heal." The doctor called Hunter and Eric to the side of the room "the reason I had u come down is to make sure he stays away from his room." Eric tilted his helmet "why's that?" "Well I know that he has a bottle of wine in there that he drinks every so often to make himself feel better but right now it, just a small glass is enough to kill him." Hunter pretended to gag "I don't see what you humans find so tasteful about that stuff!" "Hey all it is is crushed grapes that have fermented for a time." "Yes but I would put up with my tongue being pulled out by pliers that drink that vile drink!!" Eric reaches over and grabs a pair of pliers from the operation table "well if you insist….." Hunter grabbed his hand "no it was just a figure of speech!" Eric put the pliers down "fine, ruin my fun…." Sasha walked to the doors leading to the hallway "ok guys lets go, I want to take a shower before I get to the bridge." "Ok, sir. We'll meet you there." The three of them walked out and the doors hissed shut behind them.

Kelly walked into the dark room; the only noise she heard was the humming of the ship. She tapped on her helmet and her night-vision turned on, the room went from bitch black to green as a desk appeared in the middle of the room. She walked over to it and found a slim computer screen standing on the top, she touched the orange flashing button and the screen flashed on. Immediately a picture of a girl appeared on the background, she was cute with long black hair, brown eyes, great smile, and tan skin. Kelly whistled "wow I can see why the General carries her picture around, now to find out who 'she' is." She pulled out a drawer from the middle of the desk which held a keyboard and pulled up the picture file and scanned the face into a "human finder" program. The searching indicator popped up and quickly disappeared, a file appeared with the face on the cover of it. Kelly clicked on the picture and open the file "name Cesiah, lives in Mexico…" Kelly kept reading in quiet until she was interrupted by voices coming from right outside the room, she quickly downloaded the file to her visor and closed the program and hid underneath the desk. The door hissed open and Visha walked in, she quickly turned to make sure nobody was following her and walked over to the desk. Kelly stood up and surprised Visha "what the hell are you doing here?" "I was about to ask you the very same question, you first," Visha stumbled around with words "well….I uh,……I am here to make sure that……well you see…." "You came to find out who that girl is that the General has a picture of aren't you?" Visha took a deep breathe "how did you know?" "Because I came for the same exact same reason" "and did you find anything?" Kelly reached over and pulled the file back up and showed her, Visha earned over as she read the file "wow, I can see why he likes her so much. But what does it say about those two, if anything?" Kelly scrolled down the screen until she found Sashas name "well it appears they met a couple of times and went to dinner one or two times. It says nothing about those two getting engaged or anything but it has a letter posted by Sasha, it reads 'to the woman I secretly love, this seems so awkward since I am the none romantic type but I was going to ask you to marry me on our last date but that is when I received word about this assignment I am going on. If you are willing to wait for me to return I will ask you then, if you say yes I will retire and we can live the rest of our lives together. But if you say no I will………. To tell you the truth I haven't really thought about what to do if you say no, but hopefully we can stay friends. Anyway, um I guess that's it, hopefully you will think on what I said and I will see you when I return. Bye for now.'"

Visha scratched her head "what is this engagement that he keeps talking about?" "Well that is when a man asks a woman to marry him, if she says yes then they announce it to all their relatives that they are going to get married. Then they set up a date for their wedding and some other things, that is what an engagement basically is." "Oh ok, did she respond to it yet?" "yeah but it has 'only for General Sashas eyes' so I might just follow her wishes. But just in case…." She copied the letter to her helmet and turned the computer off, the room turned back into darkness and they both walked out of the room, "so what are you going to do with that letter?" "Well I am going to go down to the cry-center and transfer that file to Sashas implants and let his mind read it." "Oh that's fine; I will see you on the bridge then" "right see ya." Kelly walked to the elevator and went down to the Cryo-room and walked over to the generals tube, she touched the panel and transferred the file to his implants, "well here you go, hope it is good news." His lips moved into a smile. She was just about ready to leave when the alarm blared "what the? Bridge what is the problem?" "Kelly report to the bridge immediately the covenant fleet has been detected heading in our direction!" Kelly gasped and ran to the bridge where Eric and Hunter were standing by the map, the marines were running station to station making sure everything was ready to fight. "Sir, all stations report battle ready and are waiting for your orders. Visha has made it to Vegna safely and has made it to the bridge." "Good patch me through," he heard a crackle on his earphone and then heard Vegnas alarms blaring "Visha here." "Alright, Jessica will be in control of navigation for both ships which means all your and my people have to do is air the guns in the right direction and keep the ships working. Also Eric and Kelly will be flying around looking for the new ship so watch where you shoot." "Roger, see tonight for dinner!" The comm. Broke up and went silent, "Eric Kelly get to your pelican and take off, and I will send you information as the battle progresses." Eric type in something on his arm, Kelly noticed "hey, what are you doing?" "I am entering how much longer I am going to live that way I am not surprised if I start to feel pain." They ran to the flight deck where twelve marines were standing at attention with assault rifles leaning on their shoulders "sorry lads but this is a Spartan mission, all you will become is cannon fodder." They shook their heads in agreement "GOOD LUCK SIR!" they shouted as they walked towards the door. Eric walked into the pelican and prepped it for launch while Kelly loaded rocket launchers and grenades into the back. Two minutes later they roared off the launch deck and quickly flew away towards a nearby asteroid, they landed on its surface and turned off the engine, "we'll wait here for the covenant fleet to go by and then we find that new ship." "Hey Eric," Kelly said as she checked her sniper rifle, "do you think we will survive this mission?" Eric leaned back in his seat and took a deep breathe "probably not, that is why I told the marines to stay on the ship. I want to limit casualties to just me and you but if I can I will let you live and I will stay behind and destroy the ship." "Is that what Hunter told you to do?" "No, Sasha told me that if anything should happen to try and get everyone out even if I have to sacrifice myself to do it, besides I am going to die anyway so I would rather go out in a bang than on a bed. He told me the most important thing is this universe is protecting your friends." There was silence for a moment when the radar detected the fleet coming into range "well here we go."

There was nothing around the Reaven and Vegna ships, just a whole lot of stars shining in the distance and a planet 3 parsecs away. Hunter turned the camera to a different direction when there was a huge flash of light and a wall of purple covenant ships, a total of 60 capital ships. The covenant hailed Vegna first, "captain Visha why have you become a heretic? You left on your holy journey to find the great artifact, but instead you have killed your own people and destroyed the artifact, why?" "What the prophets have been teaching us have been false, the rings will destroy everything instead of leading our people on the great journey. Don't believe me? Here, this is from the ancient structure where thousands of years ago the humans and our raced live together in peace." "Be quiet you heretic, you are just like the rest of them always saying the prophets are leading our race to destruction. Well besides this piece of trash that you probably conjured up what else have you come up with?" "My husband Hunter was rescued by the humans and now he goes on missions for the humans because he discovered the truth between us covenant and humans, that once we build a city and lived together in harmony…." An explosion shook the enemy camera and the elite fell to the floor "My brothers the heretic has made the first move and now we will attack and silence her voice so she doesn't lead any more astray." His face disappeared and the covenant fleet appeared and purple dots glowed from their hulls, Sasha sat up his chair and pushed the comm. Button "Did we give you enough time to get through Eric?" A fuzzy picture appeared with Kelly and Eric standing on the covenant ship "we made it through with no problems; tell Visha she gave a wonderful distraction. Jessica has already hacked into the ship and has been able to deactivate the ships engines but remember Sasha WE ARE STILL HERE!" "Alright I guess we will try to avoid that ship then as long as it doesn't fire at us." The screen went back to the fleet, the purple dots were as bright as ever and started to fly at them "evasive actions make our heading right in the middle of their fleet and tell Vegna to provide cover fire" "yes sir Vegna has received and understood the message." The Reaven flew straight into battle and purple light slammed into her hull "minor damage on all outer decks inner shields are holding"

Vegna flew from side to side as blue lights flew pass the hull "I must compliment our designers for building a very nimble ship. Prep the canons to fire auto-lock rods and evacuate all outer decks and prepare for boarding!" "Aye Aye mam, all marines report to battle stations! Flood all unnecessary compartments! ON THE DOUBLE!" The four squad commanders saluted and marched off deck, right as the doors closed behind them the ship shook with tremendous rumbling "mam, minor damage to our shields and 20 canons are ready to fire." A bright flash appeared on the screen and then it shattered in bright red flames, "is this the end?"

Little vibrations went through the pelican as a group of grunts fired their plasma pistols at the door, "well," Eric said as he loaded his assault rifle, "we don't have the weapons that the doc sent us but the rocket launcher adds a nice touch." Kelly was loading clips for her sniper rifle "yeah I thought their might some hunters here so we might as well be prepared…" Eric slapped a piece of C-4 to the back door "you ready?" She slammed a clip into her rifle "sure why not." Eric held his rifle in one hand and pushed the button with the other, the door flew off in a big puff of smoke and right into 5 grunts which crushed them like jelly. The other grunts ran away trying to get out of the hanger but between Eric's trigger happy personality and Kelly's dead aim they didn't stand a chance. 5….10…20….40…60 grunts later there was no movement except for Eric repeatingly smacking one of the dead grunts "you had to be stupid and shoot up my ship didn't ya? SPEAK AS..." "Eric!" Jessica popped up on a pedestal near the hanger door "I have control of all the doors that we need….but….WHAT THE?...ERI…" The comm. Fell silent, "Jessica…JESSICA! Dang it I cant get hold of her, what happened?" The hanger door slide open and a green mist flowed from the hall, a low growl rolled out "well whatever it is," Kelly pulled out her rocket launcher, "I don't think it is used to having guests." Eric snuck up to the side of the door and threw a grenade in, with a loud thump the grenade threw green slime onto the hanger floor, Eric wiped the slim from off his boot "yeah I would have to give the verdict that we are not the only things after this ship." Kelly marine crawl up to the door and with one quick motion turned her flashlight on and ran into the hall way. Eric did a body roll into the hall and brought his rifle to his shoulder, his flashlight turned on and green slime was covering him from head to toe, Kelly was at the other end of the hall-way and peaked up the long ramp up to the bridge. Eric walked over behind Kelly and wiped the new slime off his visor "you know, if I wanted a slime bath I could've used the leftover water from Hunters baths. Kelly looked up the hall and noticed no one was there "that is strange, the doors are all open and there are no guards." Eric looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath in, "Kelly whatever YOU do don't tell me I didn't warn you. Don't look up." "Whyyyyy……OH MY GOD!" As she slowly looked up she noticed blue and purple blood oozing down the walls and on the ceiling were the bodies of every elite, grunt, and hunter in the ship plastered to the roof but some green webbing. One of the elite bodies fell from the netting and slammed to the ground, Eric walked up to the body "hey this one is still breathing, CAN YOU HEAR ME?" The elite gasped for air and grabbed Eric's arm, blood flew out of his stomach wound, all his insides were gone except for his lungs and heart. "We tried to stop them…. (The elite gasped for air)...I was on the bridge when they bursted through the vents….they flowed out like a river…" The elite tightened his grip on Eric, "destroy this ship, this infestation cannot leave this place….please I implore you...you…..must…" The Elite dropped his head and his arm fell to the floor.

"General Sasha, Visha's bridge just hit by s direct plasma bolt, we have taken 30 shield damage." Sasha looked out over the space "why haven't they sent boarding crafts yet?" "SIR, the covenant ships have stopped their attack and they have encircled the ship that Eric and Kelly are on." Sasha pressed his comm. Button on the side of his chair "Visha can you read me?" Static appeared on his personal screen but slowly focused into view, the front of the bridge had been blown apart and sucked into space but an emergency shield had erected, Visha wobbly stood up with blood dripping from her head "this is Visha, I am combat ineffective. I have no control of this ship and half of the marine bridge crew got sucked into outer-space. One landing craft made it aboard but we managed to destroy them. Orders Sasha?" He opened a comm. To the hanger bay "attention, this is General Sasha speaking. I want five pelicans to fly over to the Vegna and transport the marines from there to here. Emergency crews stand by for injured. Visha, there are five pelicans heading to you to transport you and your crew off that heap. Set self detonation for 1 hour and then get the hell outta there." "Roger, see you in five minutes." The screen went blank and Sasha turned to his comm. Officer, "make this announcement. The covenant have ceased their assault for now, remain at battle stations, repair crews fix any damaged sections." The officer turned to his consol and repeated the order, Sasha sat back in his chair in deep thought, "I wonder what is going on that is so important as to call off a dog-fight?"

Eric kept his assault rifle to his shoulder and his flash-light pointed up the long hall full of the stench green gas, Kelly followed close behind with her sniper rifle pointed behind. They walked the long hallway while purple blood dropped from the ceiling and covenant bodies falling every couple of minutes. After 5 minutes of walking they found the entrance to the bridge securely locked, Eric pounded on the door "hello, human pizza delivery for mister in your face!" There was a gurgling sound coming from the other side of the door, Kelly pulled out her rocket launcher "well if their not going to welcome us in lets just make ourselves feel at home." Eric his behind a nearby pedestal, Kelly put the door in her sights "3….2…..1….ze" "WAIT!" A voice came screaming over their headsets; Eric scratched his head "Jessica? Is that you?" "Yes it's me, but I am not by myself. It looks like this covenant ship explored the space of that station we destroyed where the flood had taken over. They found one survivor, Morphius." Eric slapped his helmet in amazement "Morphius is alive? But I saw him get taken down by all those flood and then that explosion..." Kelly tapped Eric on his shoulder "look the door is unlocked" The lights on the door turned from red to green and slipped open, the room inside was dark except for the pedestal where Jessica's hologram was. "Jessica can you give us some lights please?" "Sir, you don't want to see what happened to him, that is why the lights are off." Kelly walked over to the pedestal, "Jessica, my scanner shows this room to be 20 feet by 20 feet so how big can he be now?" "All right but don't say I didn't warn you…" Jessica raised her hands and an eerie light flickered on, right on the highest point of the control platform was a giant green beast, about 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide. The beast looked like a flood but different, sorta like a plant bulb, "Morphius? What happened?" The supposed head of him lifted off the ground and opened his mouth while a green gas flowed out "I was once Morphius but now I am the Flood. My master from whom I was created was at the station since the dawn of time but decided to hide himself from the humans and covenant until he could take over. He was killed in the explosion and I was created to control my brothers. Without me they would have destroyed themselves long ago when we were given birth." Kelly looked down at Jessica on the pedestal "so then why did we loose communications with you?" "He does not only control physically but he can tap into the ships computers and he discovered me, we have been exchanging information all this time." Morphius growled and pieces of green slim flew from his mouth, "I have given her the knowledge of my race and every event since the creation of the flood from 10 million years ago." Eric gave out a whistle "wow 10 million years, no wonder you are green and slimy. You know I have a piece of bread once that I left under my bunk for 10 months and whewy did it stink…." "Eric zip it!" Kelly reached down to the pedestal and touch the memory port, in an instant Jessica transferred to Kelly. The ship rumbled and leaned to the left "what is that?" Eric fell to the floor and pointed his rifle to the door, Morphius growled "the covenant fleet has discovered me and is now trying to retake the ship. Alas I am out of brothers for which to fight with." Eric grabbed at his chest slammed his head to the floor "AH MY CHEST, it feels like it is going to explode!" Kelly ran over and helped Eric to his feet "it must be the poison getting to you. Morphius, doesn't the bridge have an emergency escape pod?" A light appeared on the side of the room, "there is your way to freedom but all I ask is that you take the AI with you, I doubt I will survive this." Eric lifted his head up "Kelly, what I am about to tell you is a direct order. GET OUTA HERE! Tell Sasha to launch a nuclear missile and the tail pipe of this ship, I will open the exhaust ports and the explosion with destroy the engines. The magnitude of this ship blowing itself to Hell ought to destroy the rest of their fleet." Loud pounding rung from the bridge door, hunter's armor jingled as they came charging into the door "Eric I am not leaving knowing that you are going to die I…" Eric had used a tranquilizer on her neck piece (the only place where the armor can be easily penetrated). Eric carried her to the pod and dropped her inside, "Kelly you follow my orders and blast this ship to kingdom come." "Roger sir, I hope we meet again." Eric stepped out and closed the doors; he pressed the blinking purple button. The pod blasted out of the ships hull and roared towards Reaven. Eric walked up the platform and right beside Morphius, he turned and looked at Eric "why do you hand over your life in exchange for hers?" "Well," he cocked a bullet into the chamber, "I know that I will be going down with a good man, besides who wants to live forever. By the way did u open the exhaust?" Morphius growled "the port is open and just incase I activated the self-destruct." The door bent as the hunters repeatingly charged it "Well I also know that I will be going out with a bang." The door turned blood red and finally bursted open as rail gun shots flew into the bridge; Eric ran down in front of the door and fired his rocket launcher "COME AND GET ME YOU DIRTY COVNENANT SCUM!!" Two rockets flew through the door and slammed into a group of hunters, instantly killing them. 10 elites ran in and poured out their plasma rifles, Eric pulled out his assault rifle and opened fire, 6 of the elite fell instantly, the other four roared and pulled out their plasma swords. They charged Eric and before he could reload his rifle they stabbed him repeatedly, in the chest, stomach, legs, and arms. They laughed as they ran over to Morphius and stabbed his right in the head. Eric fell to his knees and his head fell back, a golden elite walked up to him and ripped off his helmet. Eric saw blood ooze out of his mouth; the elite picked Eric up by his suit and lifted him off the ground. "Why puny human do you persistently get in our way? Don't you see it is irrelevant, no matter what you do we will complete our great journey. Eric laughed and coughed blood out of his lungs, the elite shook him "what is so funny?" Eric tilted his head forward "because you smell just like what I had imagined you would." "Oh yeah and what did you think I would smell like?" Eric raised his arm up and exposed a bar of C-4 strapped to his arm with a detonator switch in his hand, "like a pile of shit!" Eric pushed the button and instantly vaporized everything in the bridge and in one bright red burst of flame destroyed the bridge.

"Sir Message coming from that escape pod, the recognition signal looks like Jessica." Sasha breathed deeply 'maybe some good news' he thought to himself "patch her through, Jessica what's the news?" "General Eric instructs you to fire a nuclear missile straight at the ships exhaust pipes." "But where is Eric, all you have is Kelly in your…oh I understand. Sasha out. Private, lets show the covenant what a missile will do." "Aye aye sir."

Jessica watched from 36 different camera views as the covenant fleet blew apart in bright blue flames, the missile couldn't have worked better. No remains were found of Eric of Morphius except for his helmet which recorded his last minutes of life. "Finally our mission is over, Eric you did go out with a bang." "Jessica, what is our damage report from this battle?" "Sir Vegna ship was lost; the entire covenant fleet was destroyed. Lives lost: 50. Kelly has been taken to the cryo-room where she will be in cryo-sleep until we return to earth." Sasha took off his hat, fell into his chair and pulled out a bottle of 1960 cherry with one glass, "did she wake up since Eric knocked her out?" He poured a glass and slowly gulped it down, "No sir" "good, it is better that we get as far away from here as possible. Where is Hunter?" Jessica laughed "where else do you think?" Sasha gulped down another "let me guess, with his wife on the lounge deck talking about home right?" Jessica's numbering on her skin flew faster and got red "um…no….they are doing private things….uh..." "You don't have to explain Jessica I understand what they are doing." "Jessica" "yes sir?" "Set a course for home" "with great pleasure sir." Her hologram disappeared from his sight and only the low hum of the engines was left, He gulped down another glass and pulled out invasion plans for High Charity, "our fights are only beginning…."

Ok that is the whole first story! Hope you enjoyed it and NO FLAMING! The next story might be finished next month!