Chapter 1: Noble Wolves
Planet Reach
August 30, 2552
Aszod Shipyard, the last place for any UNSC survivor could have gone to get off Reach.
Waiting for them would have been The Pillar of Autumn, the last transport and hope to escape
the Covenant's wrath. Now, it lay in smoldering ruins, glassed by the Covenant cruisers
circling overhead. Bodies of both dead Covenant and UNSC forces lay all across the battlefield,
enemies in life, brothers in death.
In the distance, the gunfire of a lone SPARTAN rings out defiantly against the charging Covenant forces. The SPARTAN, call sign Noble Six, one of the last two remaining members of the SPARTAN-III 'Noble Team'. For several long hours, Six had been fighting desperately for her life against the force of an entire Covenant division sent with the sole purpose of ending her life. However, after taking a plasma rifle round to the side from an Elite Minor, Six was running out of time. She knew she was at her limit. Her helmet visor damaged, her armor's shield depleted, and her ammo almost out, and with no obvious way out Six takes on the combined forces of three Elite Ultras, and one Zealot in hand to hand combat, defeating each of the Elite kill team despite the last one knocking her to her back.
Satisfied and exhausted Six glances to the side to see an Elite Field Marshall making his
way over to finish what the fallen Ultras and Zealot started. Six stares defiantly at the raised
Energy Dagger aimed at her beating heart. As the dagger descends to her chest, Six sees the
images of her fallen comrades in the break room of the UNSC Frigate-Savannah. Jorge and
Carter sit at a table playing a round of cards. Kat wrestles furiously with some small electronic
device that someone on board wants her to fix, while Emile sits silently in a chair lovingly
sharpening his curved machete, preparing it for the next battle. Six calls out to them. They look up and give her a welcoming nod, as she prepares to join them.
Suddenly, a shot distinctly from a sniper rifle rings out and the Field Marshall's shields flare to life. A quick second shot and the Field Marshall staggers as the impact of the round forces the Elite's shields out and simultaneously knocking the Energy Dagger away from Six's chest but leaving a long gash in the armor.
The Field Marshall turns to where he thinks the shots came from and shouts orders to the survivors under its command until a third shot rings out to finish off the Covenant officer. The lesser aliens scatter.
The Field Marshall falls atop Six's body, purple blood oozing from the hole in its head.
Six remains still, not wanting to gain the attention of any Covenant who might be
near by. Six does her best to ignore the burning plasma wounds in her side.
The only sounds of life she could hear was the howling of the dusty wind, the footsteps of some
Elite Minors still searching for the phantom killer, and the soft hum of a Ghost as it passed
by. Overhead, several Phantoms scan the area in search for the Marshall's killer. Several minutes
pass and the Phantoms give up their search and begin to collect the remaining Elites, Grunts, and
Jackals to return them to their base. More time passes before the Phantoms leave the area with
their troops.
As the last of the Phantoms leaves the area, the only thing Six is left with is silent dead around her. Tired of having the heavy and rapidly smelling corpse on top of her Six musters what little strength she has left and tosses the Field Marshall off her before rolling over on her stomach and slowly crawling towards the ruins of one of the nearby buildings still standing after the heavy fighting.
The third degree burns bite at Six's side. Six ignores the pain, slowly makes her way to the building, and spots a first aid kit. Six edges towards the kit, grabs it, and immediately opens the kit. Six seizes the tube of Bio Foam and forces its contents into her open wound, ignoring the
immense pain surging through her side before subsiding into a low thrum.
Six tossed the gel tub to the side and props herself against one of the concrete columns.
As Six lies against the post, she feels a wave of exhaustion wash through her and the constant
heavy fighting she had been doing earlier finally begins to take its toll on her. As her eyes begin
to close, Six begins to wonder who was left on this rock that saved her from impending death.
Soft crunching of the gravel on the ground brings Six out of her short slumber. Six
reflexively draws her knife before easing off the column and over into the shadow of one of the standing walls. The footsteps get closer, too soft for Elite or brute and no chatter so it was searching for something. Six counts off in her head 10 feet, 8 feet, 6 feet, 4 feet, 2 feet.
Six lunges at her would be attacker knocking them to the ground with her arm pinning the right arm with her legs straddling the torso ready to plunge her knife into whoever it was that followed her.
"Not the kind of response I was expecting, Six." a familiar voice said. Six looks closer and notices that the armor her would be attacker is wearing is SPARTAN armor. Green SPARTAN-III armor.
"Jun, what are you doing here?" Six asks not lowering the knife from his throat.
"I spotted a grey armored SPARTAN about to get shiskabobed," Jun
Replied winded, "and decided I couldn't let that happen."
"Don't think I didn't notice that you avoided the question." Six brought the knife closer. "What are you doing here? I thought Noble One gave you orders to stick with Dr. Halsey."
Jun exhaled sharply, "If it's any consolation, I haven't gone AWOL. I went with Halsey to another group of Marines who were fighting off a small Covenant squad. I assisted them. Then we spotted a cruiser headed in your direction. Dr. Halsey gave me orders to head to the shipyard to warn you guys about it. However, by the looks of things I came a bit late. Now, will you let me up or are you going to sit on me all day?"
Six slowly rose off Noble Three and sat down on a nearby rock. Jun removed his helmet
and gave Six a look over. "You're a brunette."
Six gave Jun a questioning look.
"Your hair, its brunette. I had you pegged for as a red head."
Six stood up and limped back towards the ruined building.
"Was it something I said?" Jun whispered to himself.
Six leaned up against the concrete column she was at only moments earlier while Noble
Three paced back and forth in front of her. She brought herself down to basics, breath complete slow breaths.
"Jun, how long are you going to pace back and forth?" she asked him.
Jun stopped pacing, looked at Six, and said, "So, you mind telling me what happened to
Carter and Emile?"
Six meet his eyes for a brief moment before looking at the ground in front of her.
Jun crossed his arms and lowered his eyes, "I passed by some wreckage of a Scarab and what looked like Pelican pieces on the way here. Care to elaborate?"
Six thought for a moment then said, "That was Carter. He was injured and—"
Jun waved his hand cutting her off, "I have an imagination, Six. And Emile, what happened to him?"
"Stabbed in the back by a Zealot." She said, her face neutral.
For a moment, they sat in silence. Jun's face grew sour while Six sat still, staring at an Ultra Elite corpse behind Jun and finding it interesting enough to take her mind off her side, which was still throbbing.
Jun suddenly shook his head, grinning. "For a guy who liked killing up close, it's a bit ironic that he of all people should get killed by an energy sword. Tell me, did he at least get to use that knife of his?"
"Actually, he did. Used it to kill the Zealot just before he died."
Jun let out a whistle, "Irony's not wasted on Emile. Dying and he still manages to impale the bastard. I'm assuming you completed the mission."
Six nodded, "The package was delivered."
"So then why are you still here?"
Six recounted how the Pillar of Autumn took off and how she provided support on the MAC Gun while it left the system. When she finished Jun stared in stunned silence at her accomplishment.
"You're really something." he said.
Six shrugged, "What else would I have done?"
"But to kill six Zealots by yourself, several Phantoms and Banshees, and disable a Cruiser and then turn right around and take out half a division of Covenant ground units, tanks included…"
Jun shook his head, "You know, Jorge told me about a guy he worked with once. Said you reminded him a lot of how that guy acted. Strong, smart, talented, brave, always liked to win, and most importantly, very lucky."
"Whatever happened to him?" Six asked.
Jun shrugged. "To be honest, no clue, although Jorge did say the guy was tasked with making sure some ONI data didn't fall into Covenant hands. Maybe he's still planet side. Anyways, you feeling any better?"
Six stood up sluggishly and started stretching her arms.
"Good enough for a while at least." Jun said.
"You have a plan, I take it." Six asked.
"Something like that." He answered.
"Mind sharing?"
"Well, for starters…" Jun disappeared for a moment then reappeared with a silver helmet in hand. He tossed the helmet to her. Six caught it and he said, "That should replace the one
that's broken."
"It's a Mark V" she said.
"That a problem."
"Hope it's in my size." She answered as she put it on her head. The display screen appeared and Six's depleted shield began to recharge, "Now that that's taken care of, we can talk strategy."
"As you're aware, there are no more UNSC ships available to get us off here.
That leaves us with two options. One, we steal a Covenant Phantom, fly it into the hangar of the
nearest Cruiser or Corvette and get out of here. Extremely risky—"
"And guaranteed to get us killed and our heads mounted as trophies in some Elite's room." Six said. "What's option two?"
"Wow Lieutenant, way to give a real motivational speech. I bet you had lots of friends in your last unit." Jun sarcastically said.
"The last unit I was in I was by myself." She commented.
"Guess Carter was right about the 'Lone Wolf' thing."
"Stop wasting my time."
"Right, I get it. The second option is just as risky, but holds a greater chance of survival. Before I left Dr. Halsey, she told me she was headed to some place called CASTLE Base. They've been taking all HVIs and UNSC brass left on this rock there. It's some secret ONI mountain base. The point is it has enough armor on it to survive a glassing and enough supplies to last us for a while. At the very least, until the Covenant leave and the UNSC comes back."
"What makes you think they're coming back?" Six asked as she examined her magnum to make sure it was in working order.
Jun gave Six a flat look, "Do you honestly think the UNSC, much less ONI, is going to just abandon Reach?"
Six remained quiet and holstered her pistol.
"Exactly. They're probably waiting for the Covenant to leave and have little interest here before they return."
And we'll probably have starved to death before then, Six thought to herself.
"Regardless of whether or not they return, CASTLE Base is our only hope of staying out of Covenant plasma round range. However, there's a catch."
This'll be good. "What's the catch?" Six asked.
"The Covenant has no doubt probably found the Pelican I came here in. They'll no doubt have set a trap for anyone who goes near it. Fortunately, your little rampage gave me a chance to set up a trap of my own. Set near the Pelican is a small staging area the Covenant were using to take troops over to your position."
To quote Noble One, this is relevant…how? "I'm assuming there's a point in there somewhere."
"A little touchy today aren't we, Six?" Jun joked.
"I've had a hell of a day." She said with more than a bit of bite to her voice.
"Don't worry about it." Jun hastily replies raising his hands in defense, "I'd probably say the same if I were in your shoes. Anyways, while you were napping I saw that one of the Phantoms was still there, looks like they might have had some mechanical trouble."
"And let me guess, you want to steal it but there's a bunch of Elites standing around guarding it. Since when has that been a problem?"
"Never has but that isn't the catch. The catch is that Dr. Halsey has a few errands for us to run. First, there's a supply cache close to where CASTLE Base is located. We could go there, get some extra supplies that should be able to hold us for while. The second is that there is a small city not too far away from where that supply cache is but in that city a squad of ODSTs and supposedly a few SPARTAN-IIs have been holding out for nearly a week. Thus far every advance the Covenant have made has failed, but Dr. Halsey believes it's only a matter of time before the Covenant break through."
"Or just simply glass it." Six said.
Jun nodded. "Therefore, Halsey wants us take this opportunity to go get them out and bring them back to CASTLE Base. Before you ask why go through all the trouble, one of the ODST possesses intel that designates him as a HVI.""
The two of them sat in silence for a moment; a small dust storm was brewing up outside the building.
"You do know that that's going to attract attention to CASTLE Base." Six said.
"It's a possibility." Jun said leaning his back against the wall. "More than likely, the Covenant will follow us to see where we're going and when we show up at CASTLE Base, we'll have to defend it. But we've defended one base before, this'll be no different."
Except then, there were four more of us Six kept to herself.
"Well, that's my plan. If you've got one better then I'm all ears."
Six looked out at the dust storm that was beginning to pick up. "If we're going to do this I'm going to need a lot more than this knife."
Jun smiled. "You're right. I saw you're assault rifle get cut in two by that energy sword."
"And my pistol is out of ammo." She said.
"At least you've got you're knife." Jun said as he passed her a spare pistol magazine, "Here, this should hold you until we get you a better weapon."
Six looked around and spotted something on the ground by the Elite corpse she was looking at earlier. She stood up, walked past Jun's outstretched hand with the spare pistol magazine, and went to the body. When she searched it, she found a Plasma Rifle and sitting next to it was an Energy Sword hilt. Six exchanged the pistol for both objects and showed them off to Jun.
"I can do something with this."
Jun nodded in approval. "Well, let's go do some avenging."
