Disclaimer: This story and the original characters that I create are the only thing that I own. Everything else belongs to 343 Industries and Lucas Film.

Setting:

One hour and Thirty-seven minutes into Operation: UPPER CUT. With the bridge of the Ardent Prayer cleared out and the ship now on a refueling track to the Covenant Supercarrier Long Night of Solace, all that remains for Noble Five and Six is to get off the doomed corvette alive…

1207 Hours, August 14, 2552/

Epsilon Eridani System, In Orbit above Reach

Covenant Corvette, Ardent Prayer

Green plasma hissed by Lance Corporal Bryant's head, hitting the bulkhead behind him and melting the exotic purple metal it was composed of. Under any other circumstance, his training would have kicked in and made him run for cover. However, with adrenaline pumping freely through his veins, he took the opportunity to cut down the unfortunate lone Grunt that had decided to attack him.

"Ha-ha! Suck it!" He yelled as he exchanged his near depleted DMR magazine with a new one. His victory was cut short as the fiery blue color of a plasma grenade came into his vision. He was already diving for cover as it bounced once and landed near a pile of mismatched Jackal and Grunt bodies. The explosion sent the corpses flying through the air. One of the Grunt's tanks was breached and was now spinning it around in circles.

He turned to the opposite side of his cover and saw that Lieutenant Healy was right beside him, swapping out his pistol for a Covie one lying nearby.

"On your six!" Bryant yelled as an Elite appeared on the ramp behind the lieutenant and took aim with his needle rifle.

Before Bryant could even squeeze the trigger, the Elite's attention was drawn to the buckshot of a shotgun as it slammed into its shields, causing them to flare bright blue and collapse. The second shot pounded into its torso, killing the already wounded Elite in an explosion of indigo blood. Jumping down from the raised platform overhead was the seven foot-tall figure of Spartan Noble Six.

"Shit… took out one of those Spec Ops types too." Bryant gawked. He had watched a single Spec Ops Elite almost take down an entire platoon without any support.

"There's still a few more," Healy said, quickly examining the piece of alien tech he had picked up before tossing it behind him. "I'm not using this Covie crap. Toss me your sidearm, Bryant."

"Better give it back, sir."

"No promises," Healy replied as he raised himself from a crouch to look over their makeshift cover. Bryant did the same and was surprised to see that the Covenant already had their hands full. Both the Spartans that they were assisting on the operation were massacring the remaining Jackals and Elites.

"These guys sure now how to kick ass, huh guys?" Corporal McCarrey chimed in on the COM. Bryant didn't reply as he watched Noble Six throw a grenade into the collection of Jackals that hadn't been paying attention to their distance from each other. The resulting explosion killed two instantly while injuring the third who was finished off by Noble Five's portable turret.

All that remained of the hangar deck were two Elite minors who were quickly dispatched by the combined fire of what remained of Fire Team Charlie and the two Spartans.

"All clear, pee-wee," Healy said over the COM to McCarrey. "Get down here."

McCarrey sighed. "Understood, sir." He jogged down the ramp closest to the shield separating the atmosphere from the void of space. He attempted to reload his shotgun with new shells as he moved.

"Savannah did a number on the door. There's no way back up to the Sabres." Noble Five reported over the COM. "Noble Six, form up on me. Marines, try to get the blasted doors working again."

"That didn't sound too good, El-Tee." McCarrey said as he finally rejoined the group on the hangar deck.

"No kidding. You heard him, though." Bryant said as he shoved McCarrey towards the door. "You're the only one qualified here in alien tech. Work your magic."

"So suddenly I'm the genius engineer, huh?" McCarrey mumbled as he tore open what looked like a service panel ear the door. "Damned door doesn't have power."

"Can you fix it?" Healy inquired.

"I'll try working on it, sir. Can't promise anything, though." He replied as he pulled out his diagnostic pad and connected it to the wiring of the panel. The datapad was a gift from their "friends" at ONI in hope that the data retrieved from the operation could be used later on in the future.

Lieutenant Healy, confident that he would get results sooner or later, turned to the other remaining trooper in his fire team.

"What do you think they're talking about over there, Lieutenant?" Bryant asked, watching the Spartans talk over by the Pelican. "They've turned off their COMs."

"I don't know." Healy replied.

The two watched as Noble Five hit the Slipspace drive as if to get it to work. He turned to Noble Six and, from what Bryant and Healy could tell, started conversing. It was impossible to tell what the soldiers were doing with their helmets on.

"I'm guessing things aren't so good on their end either." Healy commented as Noble Five took off his helmet and allowed it to drop onto the deck.

"Sir, I think I've… almost got it." McCarrey said as he typed commands in furiously on the datapad, simultaneously going through its entire lexicon to find where the key components were and making corrections to any anomalies.

The larger Spartan took hold of the other's hand and lifted him up, slowly moving towards the shield door.

"Sir?" Bryant asked as he turned to his CO. "What is he doing?"

Noble Five paused at the shield door for a moment and tossed Noble Six through it, all the while watching as his comrade drifted down to Reach's surface. The corvette continued to accelerate to its target.

"What the hell just happened?" Bryant asked, extremely confused as to why the Spartan had betrayed the other.

"I don't-" Healy started to reply as he was cut off by McCarrey's laugh of triumph.

"Ha! Got the bastard to work!" He exclaimed as he stood up from the panel. The door slid open normally, revealing the hallway back to their docked ships, but yet another closed and unresponsive door.

Noble Five heard the commotion, retrieved his helmet and put it on. "I'm sorry, Corporal. It doesn't really matter now." Noble Five said, his tone grim.

"What?" McCarrey asked just before the massive Spartan his the manual control panel and punched in the "go" command.

The Slipspace drive pulsed with sinister blue-black energy until it began to implode onto itself. Gravity sucked in everything towards it for a matter of moments and then suddenly stopped. The drive finally ended its foreboding display with the most basic and ancient spectacles in history: an explosion.

Time and Date: Unknown

Polith System

Freelance Freighter, Evasion is Key

Ricc Andolo was rudely awoken by the flashing klaxons that ran throughout his ship. Being the sole crewmember as well as pilot, he had expected more peace and quiet on his ship than he actually got.

He opened his eyes finally after listening to the blaring alerts that came from his navigation computer.

"Blast it." He mumbled to himself as he double checked his ship's current position. "I wasn't supposed to exit hyperspace for the next seven hours. Damned hyperdrive's acting up again."

He yawned, rubbing his eyes, and took a full diagnostic of his ship. Much to his amazement, the hyperdrive wasn't malfunctioning at all. He studied the technical readouts from the past hour and finally found the problem. A high-intensity electromagnetic pulse had managed to hit his ship, temporarily disabling all systems.

Including life support.

He frantically pulled of the status' of all essential systems and found them all to be working well within normal parameters.

"What the hell?" He said to no one in particular. There simply had never been spontaneous EMP encounters while traveling through hyperspace in the history of the Republic. He wasn't a physicist, but he knew something wasn't right.

Now content with the fact that he was in no immediate danger, he checked the ship scanners to see what was out in the void.

It only took a single sensor ping to discover an enormous mass only three-hundred-thousand meters away. Its composition was metallic, obviously, but of unknown materials. It didn't match any of the possible durasteel or plasteel alloys normally found on starships.

Ricc decided to actually see this behemoth mass and rotated his ship to face it.

It looked like a ship that had been broken into pieces. Armor plating and hull scaffolds freely floated in space. Electrical discharges came frequently from the exposed interior, and atmosphere flooded into the growing array of debris.

The poor bastard had taken quite a hell of a beating already, but the ship had yet an even more horrid fate to face.

Just off the ship's port section was the star of the Polith system, glowing a menacing orange as if in anticipation of claiming its new fuel source.

The ship, according to Ricc's ship sensors, was slowly being brought in by the star's gravity well.

In all of his years of piloting, travelling the galaxy for random and somewhat legitimate reasons, he had never come across anything like this.

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