Flight of the Phoenix: Chapter 0, a halo fanfic

The Flight of the Phoenix

By: a j00ish guy

Note: Anytime you see italics like this in the story, that means a character is thinking to himself.

Chapter Zero: The Phoenix Reborn

It was a day like any other. A routine checkup of all systems and then a quick fly-by of the base. The colonel sat down to his post, booting up his computer. Binary code flashed across his screen as his BIOS made sure everything was in check. Everything that was okay before was okay now.

: systemcheckphoenix.exe

: Shield Integrity...loading...

Check!

: Armor Integrity...loading...

Check!

: Radio Communications...loading...

Check!

: Radar...loading...

Warning

Colonel Michelle woke up quickly at the sound now blaring from the once silent computer. Typing in his password to enter the A.I.'s mainframe, he pulled up the radar screening. Appearing on his screen were a few blips at first. They looked relatively small.

UNSC ships? He thought to himself.

Michelle turns over to his coworker, Staff Sergeant Stevens, and asks, "Are there any returning UNSC ships on schedule?"

Ssgt. Stevens looked over and replied casually, "Not to my knowledge, why?"

Michelle looked at the screen in shock at first, but quickly came to and began entering codes. In a matter of minutes, the ships alarms started blaring and he sent out a call along the ship.

"Incoming ships of unknown origin! All personnel to their posts immediately!"

Soon after the announcement the ships commander, Cmd. Chase, bellows from the other side of the door,

"What are you men doing? Why didn't you consult me before putting the ship on full alert!"

Cpt. Michelle turns to his superior officer and states in a shaky tone, "Ma'am, unknown ships in vector 7, just out of the Hazard's orbit."

Cmd. Chase stood silent for a few seconds, pondering her next move. Coming to a solution, Chase makes her way to the projection screen. When she gets up to the screen, she looks down at a small pedestal and taps a button on the front.

"Molly, get me a secure line to Phildalus, and be sure to give my boys a wake-up call."

The pedestal that was touched merely seconds before by the commander came to life. The peak of it, upon which crystals sat, shimmered and then shone. A small sky blue light in the form of a delicate female body appeared hovering over the crystals. Phoenix's A.I. System, Mjolnir. As the coding rushed around the A.I., the projection of her had the light fragmented to appear as if she were concentrating.

Molly, as she likes to be called, smirked and leaned her projected head towards the commander, "on it, Margret. Opening direct link with Admiral Desmond in 5. Calling our boys from above now."

--Meanwhile--

The complex machines before Charles buzzed to life. As their operator, it was his job to make sure these machines do what they are supposed to do and do it with speed and proficiency. To de-thaw soldiers and get them into combat awareness within 3 minutes. Charles punched the key codes into the machine and yelled to his friend downstairs in the cryo-bay.

"Hey! Will! Direct call from the bridge! De-thaw 'em and suit 'em up! We have contacts!"

Cop. Williams, who was half awake, jumped to attention and yelled, "I was not sleeping, sir! I was fooling the enemy into a false sense of security, sir!"

Charles shakes his head in astonishment and yells again, "Will! It's Charley! Wake! Them! Up!"

Will, still half sleeping, rubs his eyes and walks over to the cryo-tubes, starring at their contents. Inside the tubes lay a squad of the finest Helljumpers this side of the Orion arm. They have to be the best. They were in the most heavily Covenant controlled area in all the galaxy. It's shoot or be shot. Luckily for Captain Samuels and his squad, they are really good at shooting.

After a momentary gaze at the soldiers, Will continued on his way to the panel. He punched in the code sloppily and got it wrong the first time. After rubbing his eyes and starring at the panel for a few seconds, he saw the numbers he needed and punched them in with super accuracy. Will ran over to the side, knowing the area immediately around the tubes will get cold and fast.

Cpt. Samuels was known for his renegade tactics and guerrilla warfare, using ancient tactics and making them modern. Not much is known about his personal life or where he was born, but it is in record that he was abducted at the age of 5 to be put into the SPARTAN-II project. However, at the age of 16, right before augmentation, he was found unfit to withstand the surgeries and was pulled from the project. Immediately afterwards he was put into the Marine Corps for his previous tactics in the SPARTAN training. Despite being at the young age of 17, he led a squadron of troops in the successful capture and eventual destruction of asteroid X-59, a heavily defended keystone in the rebels fortification of other worldly objects.

The whole room was silent. Then with a bang, the locks on the tubes broke free and they began to release pressure. A loud hiss followed as the cryo gases escaped the tube and instantly froze the metal floor around them. With another click, the tubes covers snapped up and warm air was pumped into the tubes.

One after the other, soldiers fell out of their tubes, half awake, vomiting cryo juices onto the floor and then drinking it back down. UNSC regulations, cryo juices give the body back all the proteins lost during the freeze. As the soldiers became more aware of what was happening, they lined up in front of their captain.

In front of a short, naked line of soldiers, Cpt. Samuels issued his first orders in months, "get to the barracks! Wash off this slime. Head to the armory...and suit up!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" The commonly said sir sandwich followed the orders by each of the soldiers.

The captain walked by Will and looked up into the room overseeing the cryo-room. There he saw several female officers giggling at all the naked marines walking by. This only put a smirk on the captains face as he walked further onward. Those women had brought back memories of the woman he was was engaged to.

She was also an officer of the UNSC, but not an ODST. Both of them stayed at a base on Reach. However, he was shipped out to lead an aerial assault on a rebel-controlled planet, just 18 hours before the Covenant invaded. When the word reached him of Reach's destruction, Cpt. Samuels was in a frozen state of shock. Not only did this give him a sniper wound to the left shoulder, but also cost him one of his men. From that day onward, Cpt. Samuels hated the Covenant not only on a war level, but also on the personal level.

Samuels shook off this day dreaming long enough to realize he was about to run into a wall. Coming to, he walked into the armory and to his locker. From there, he suits up. First on, his A.I. matrix layer specially designed for him and him only. Next up was his thin layer of flexible titanium carbide with inter-woven Kevlar, a standard for any ODST. Then goes on his vacuum suit, an air-tight, water-proof, energy dispersing cloth layer. Then his simple armor, shin guards, breast plate, and gloves.

On his way out, he grabs his helmet and an MA6B Assault Rifle. He noticed the weapon was different then his standard MA5B. He noticed a scope where the ammo count was, a clip of thirty shredder rounds, and small 5.66mm grenade launcher. He liked the new improvements. A lot. With a new found curiosity about this weapon he packs extra ammo.

"Time to roll, marines. March!" Samuels shouted from behind his small squad. Walking out slowly behind them.

End Chapter 0

Author Notes: Please tell me what you think. I'll start the next chapter soon but I am unable to do anything between June 20th and July 11th. But please, leave criticism. I think my email is public so you can email any thoughts you have if they are too long for a review...have a good one!