Prologue
1600 Hours, June 15, 2537 (Military Claendar)
Aboard Covenant Cruiser Divine's Grace, Location Unknown
(14 years before Halo's Discovery)
The ship was silent. Even though the SPARTANS had already killed several members of her crew by vaulting them into the vacuum of space, the ship was too quiet.
One of the four SPARTAN-IIIs looked around careful, always keeping an eye on his motion sensor just in case some Covenant decided to take the wrong route that day. He was their commander of this mission, and he made a promise once to the man to being them all home. This man who made his life a living hell was also the trainer who made him into a SPARTAN, Lieutenant Ambrose.
The green armored superhuman code number was SPARTAN-A037, but he was also known as Richard by his close friends. He stood six feet tall, even without his armor on, in his left hand he hold tightly onto his battle-scarred MA5K Assault Rifle, in his right hand, a FENIX nuclear mine missile, a deadly combination.
A sudden crash behind the Commander made him glance to his right, but lucky it wasn't a Covenant.
The sound came from one of his comrades placing down her FENIX mine. SPARTAN-A074 set the bombs throughout the light-bluish hull. Her name was Mary or at that least that was the name, they gave her. The Commander's opinion about was very simple, she was the one who made big explosions and that was the last thing thousands of Covenant would ever see. He had another opinion about her too, but that was usually kept to himself.
The Spartan Commander looked around again to see both SPARTAN-A024's and SPARTAN-A157's outlines appear on his HUD displays covering the two hallways that were the only escape routes. Tim and Jack respectively nodded at their commander.
With the a few brief moments to spare, the commander reflected back on his three comrades and how they met seven years ago. All that remained at the time were the three hundred children who had passed Lieutenant Ambrose's first insane test. They were doing their thirty laps around the "entire" compound, which was a total of three miles each, when Mary, who was leading the pack, unexpectedly collapsed from exhaustion. He ran up to her and carried her until she cold lean on him just for support. When Tim and Jack were overlapping them, Jack started calling her weak and useless. He punched Jack breaking his nose. It took three hours for the bleeding to stop. Tim had to carry Jack for the remaining laps.
The next day, Jack came into the Red Barracks and beat the living hell out of him. When questioned what happen by Ambrose, Richard replied that he fell down the steps of the barracks. Jack surprised by this, apologized to him for his actions, and for the rest of their training, Jack was his best friend. When they were finally assigned to their firing teams years later, he and Jack were surprised to be together. Mary and Tim were added bonus because Mary was always the quiet one, but had an explosive temper while Tim prided himself for his motto of one shot, one kill.
Although they all wore a full suit of Semi-Powered Infiltration armor (called SPI for short), its hardened plates and photo-reactive panels could only take a few glancing blows before failing. The shields were almost non-exist compared to the MJOLNIR suits that the SPARTAN-II wore, so they relied heavy on their active camouflage that the SPI could produce with reversed engineered Covenant stealth technology to protect them. The only advantage they had was the Covenant would not be looking for enemies using their own equipment.
With the success of SPI suits, they had made it this far without detection. However, that would change incredibly quickly. As Mary set the last nuclear mine, alarms started to go off inside the Covenant vessel. Even though the Spartans could not understand the alien languages directly, their helmets were equipped with an automatic translation program, so the message was very clear, get the hell out of their now.
The Commander looked back at his motion sensor to thirty red dots heading their way from the right hallway. He made a swift hand gesture pointing toward the left passage and three green pings appeared on his HUD signifying their acknowledgement of his order. They quickly run down the left hallway taking many sudden turns and spins until the Commander raised his hand telling them to stop.
He did not like it. It was too easy. In all his missions, never was there one this unproblematic. He checked his motion sensor once again before giving Jack the go-ahead sign. A green light flashed on his HUD, and Spartan-A157 approached the blue airlock. However, the Commander saw the outline of cloaked three Elites running toward his comrade. He tried to yell something, but his light cut-down MA5K rifle fired first, killing one the Elite instantly while bring the other two out of cloaked. However, by firing, his SPI suit stealth unit flickered and then died, leaving him exposed. The red Elite raised its needler and wasted no time unloading its clip at him.
The two Elite forgot about Jack at the door so he used to his advantage. Jack grabbed the second Elite's head and with all of his Spartan strength easily twisted it a total of a hundred-eighty degrees. The red Elite noticed his companion's limp body hit the cold metal floor and blindly fired his needler in the general direction of Jack. Mary and Tim fired their MA5K rifles at the red Elite with deadly accurate precision. The Elite dropped dead in seconds. The Commander breathed a sigh of relief as he checked himself for injuries and found none, even though he had a close call with one needle that attempted to break through his frail shield.
Then something on his HUD got his attention. Jack's vitals dropped and he was close to flat lining. He immediately jumped to action and appeared next to his life-long friend. Not only did one needle break through his shield, but also seven of them were embodied inside his armor causing massive blood-loss and severe damage to his internal organs. Mary gripped the Bio-foam and pumped Jack's inside with it but the damage was already done. His vitals dropped again and Jack passed away in a matter of a few seconds. Both Tim and Mary remained silence as their commander cursed himself for his own stupidity.
His swore that Jack's death would be avenged someday, but not here, not now. He had a squad to protect. The commander pulled himself together and motioned for the team to move forward. As they checked and cleared the next room of a few grunts, the commander checked Jack's vitals one last time before activating Jack's self-detonate device. The Commander knew if he looked back now, he would never leave Jack by himself. They would vanish together, and no one would never know, but he could not abandon his remaining squad.
When the airlock closed behind him, an explosion caused both Tim and Mary to stare at the door, but they knew what happen and didn't need to ask. The three Spartans then quietly advanced toward the exit, the same one they came in by. The hallway was small but all three super sized humans could effortlessly make it through it. However, the Covenant had another plan. Behind them, between three to five hundred Elites, Grunts, and Jackels appeared baring the heavy weapons needed to kill the three young Spartans.
The Commander tried to scream for his squad to make a break for the door, but Tim roared something on the comlink and charged the Covenant. A sudden crash could be heard as four Hunters darted from the sides and caught Tim if their cross fire. Nothing remained but a few pieces of scorched SPI plates.
The Commander gripped Mary by the wrist and used Tim's sacrifice so they make it. As they hit the door, Mary quickly hacked into the Covenant system and opened the hatch. The Commander was about jumped when something pushed him suddenly. He glanced back see Mary's body in the path of hundreds of flaming hot blots of plasma. She pursed the release button and the door closed leaving her inside. Without anything to push against, the Commander helpless drifted away from the Covenant vessel.
A few seconds later, but felt like a century to the commander, the vessel exploded in a ball of light and turned into a giant ball of vapor. The Commander cried inside in his helmet as he wished he died with his team on that damn vessel.
Safety inside the UNSC transport Viper, he knew he had to live. They allowed him to continuing living for some reason, but he tried to remember. Only darkness started to engulf. Who was he? What was he? Nothing. Not his name, his mission, his comrades. Everything was gone.
All that would come to his darkening mind was, "I am a Spartan."
With that last thought, the Viper continued to go through the vastness of space as his mind become one with the void.
A/N: Not much to say but that I hope you enjoyed. Leave reviews, good or bad. I do not care. Also as a disclaimer, I do own Halo, I own Microsoft, and Bungie, that is why I work my sorry ass for six dollars an hour at a fast food place. Com'on. Disclaimers are so pointless. If you are putting it on a FANFICTION site, yes you do not own it.
P.S. Thanks to everyone who helped. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: If I wasn't clear earlier…I do not own the rights to Halo or Halo 2. Any characters I use from them are the property of Bungie and Microsoft. Everyone else belongs with me.
Covenant Terms for the non-Halo-ers
Covenant-Human
Sangheili - Elite
Unggoy - Grunt
Lekgolo - Hunter
Jiralhanae - Brute
Kig-Yar - Jackal
Yanme'e - Drone
Huragok - Engineer
Prophet – Prophet