Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones or Halo. Game of thrones is property of HBO and George RR Martin. Halo/Halo wars is property of 343 Industries and Microsoft.
AN: This crazy story was inspired "A Spartan in Westeros" by Agailius. Much of this series will be following the show series rather than the books, but there will be a bit of a mix in of book stuff. As for the Halo series, most will focus on the Halo wars cast, but there will be no forerunners, Didact or anything after Halo 3. Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST, Reach and Halo Wars are canon, as are the Eric Nylunds novels First Strike, Fall of Reach and Ghosts of Onyx.
Military time and date: 1105 hours, 21st September, 2552
Today is a special day. It is rare for any southern lords to go north of the neck, even rarer the King himself! Much preparation had been made for the feast for a King. Now all there was left to do was to await the King's arrival
At midday, a large company of over 300 knights of House Baratheon and House Lannister rode into Winterfell, the home of House Stark, their banners flapping about in the cool air of the North. At the very front of the company was a rather big fat man on a horse with two Kingsguard riding behind him, their white cloaks flapping behind them. That was King Robert Baratheon, the first of his name.
Waiting within the courtyard of Winterfell was an audience of the Stark family and the many sworn swords and bannerman of House Stark.
As some servants placed steps for the King to dismount and step off his horse, everyone else in the courtyard knelt before him.
With an impatient huff, he stride up to oldest man of the family, Lord Ned Stark, and flicked the tips of his hand to rise. As Lord Stark stood back up with a respectful quiet "Your grace", everyone else did, all eagerly waiting for the King's first words. To their surprise, it was:
"You've got fat," he said, right to Lord Stark's face with a serious expression.
Ned's response was with his eyes flicking up and down at the King himself and a raising of his eyebrows, as if to say "So did you".
A few tense moments passed before both of them began chuckling, their serious expressions melting into a friendlier manner, instantly breaking the tension and relaxing everybody else as he went to hug the Lord of Winterfell.
After pulling away, Robert mutters "Nine years, why haven't I seen you? Where have you been?"
"Guarding the North for you, Your Grace. Winterfell is yours."
As if it was a challenge, two motes of light follow by another appeared high above Winterfell, catching everyone's attention as they looked high above.
The first two lights spat out grey rectangular things that looked big floating fortresses, with little motes of lights on them, then the mote of light shrank and disappeared without a trace. Then another mote of light appeared some distance away from the other two, spitting out not another grey fortress thing, but a sleek purple fortress, which was more curved than the other two, compared to the straight and rigid frames of the other two.
Robert lowered his head and looked at Ned "What in seven Hell is that Ned? Is this some sort of show off?" boomed Robert Baratheon to Lord Stark, before darting his head back towards the sky, as if hypnotised.
"No! Your Grace, I have never seen this either in all my life" shouted Ned Stark as confusion and fear slipped into his voice
As one, the grey fortresses turned towards the purple one. With a loud crack of thunder, louder than anything had ever heard before in their lifetime, as the two grey fortresses spat out fire along with puffs of smoke that travelled as if it had a mind of its own. The purple fortress also spat out something, but it was more like three bright blue coloured lines at the smaller of the grey fortresses.
What happened next raised screams as the smaller grey thing burst into pieces at unspeakable force, orange fiery blooms appearing, as if they were spirits crying out at the pain. Pieces blasted out and seemed to be flying towards the ground in all directions. The purple fortress fared better, as a shimmer appeared, purple lights emerging as if to catch the little puffs of smoke. Not all of them were caught, as some hit, causing a few orange blooms on the purple fortress.
What was going on above, nobody inside Winterfell and throughout the North did not know, but it raised a feeling of fear that they had rarely felt or ever known… the fear of the unknown.
It seemed the grey ship had decided to run, as it moved away towards the mountains of the North, but the purple ship struck again with two more beams of who knows what into the rear of the fortress, causing more orange and shards to appear, as it begun sinking lower and lower to the ground towards the mountains north of Winterfell.
At this point, everyone was screaming in fear and panic, people grabbing and shoving each other, asking to know anything about the spectacle, even some of the soldiers and knights. A couple old men and woman sunk to their knees, weeping as they witnessed what seemed like an bad omen of things to come. That is until Roberts booming voice bellowed over all of them.
"STOP THIS MADNESS IN THE NAME OF YOUR KING!"
The people became silent, as they stared towards the king. The authority of his voice quelled their fears and they recovered as quickly as possible. For a single moment, King Robert Baratheon expelled a calm and commanding aura that hadn't been felt by many in his own company for years, showing the spirit that had won him many battles and earned him the Iron throne. The soldiers, knights, lords and nobles who had panicked composed themselves rapidly, lest they unleash the fury of The Stag upon themselves. Many were distracted that they had acted so unbecomingly and let their panic be visible.
Most of the people didn't see but the few who kept looking up, including Jon Snow, Arya, the dwarf on the horse and Ned saw something else happen.
A much bigger grey fortress in the distance appeared, growing bigger as it moved and even looked bigger than any of the other fortresses, moving in the direction of the purple one. It then had done the same as the other two fortresses; spat out fire at the end in the direction of the purple ship followed with puffs of smoke.
This time, it was the purple fortress that did the blasting. Bright colours covered it until a bright flash and large amounts of it disappeared, with small shards bursting outward. The grey fortress continued moving towards the Northern Mountains, where the other grey thing had gone, and unless they were mistaken, it was also getting lower, yet they didn't get the feeling of fear, but relief.
Military time and date: 0545 hours, 20th September, 2552
"Captain, wake up. Something has happened"
That was the first thing Captain James Gregory Cutter of the UNSC Spirit of Fire heard, before kneeling out of his cryo-tube and coughing violently. He was faintly aware of the coughing fits of his fellow officers as he focused on regurgitating the cryo-inhalant and swallowing it.
Ignoring the unpleasant experience, his mind raced with all the worst case scenarios as he thought of what he'd just heard. He quickly looked up to the source of the voice that had spoken, a holotank projector of a young female avatar with long hair staring right back at him.
"What is it Serina? Is it urgent?" gasped the Captain as his lungs filled with oxygen for the first time since he was on ice.
"The navigation computer has found anomalies in the fusion reactor. The fusion reactor needs to be shut down to be inspected and checked as soon as possible or we'll increase the chances of a reactor failure," Serina replied calmly. "The problem is that it can take up to 6 months to completely ensure it is safe and replace parts if need be."
The old captain he pushed himself back up weakly to stand back up as his muscles stiff from being inactive for so long. One of the side effects of long cryo-sleep he thought to himself. And his old age isn't making it any easier.
"That means we'll have to land the Spirit somewhere. Is there any planets close by that is suitable for our needs?" James replied, seemingly ignoring the bridge officers listening to the conversation despite that all of them were naked. Nudity was hardly an issue as sleeping in cryo with clothes on left freezer burn.
"Yes captain, there are several planets in this system, but there is one with an atmosphere that is capable of supporting human life."
"Set a course for it Serina and bring the ship to combat alert Beta. I want to prepare a scavenging operation on the planet to bring any resources we can use."
"Yes Captain, ETA 27 hours," answered Serina before disappearing from the holotank.
Captain Cutter turned to face the bridge officers in the cryo-chamber, who were all standing to attention and awaiting orders. "Right, let's get cleaned up, dressed and some food. Take the time to get your bearings, and then meet me on the bridge the bridge at" glancing at the military time displayed near the entrance of the cryo-chamber." 0900 hours. Dismissed!"
"Yes Sir!" replied the officers, before turning sharply and making their way to the showers and lockers.
As soon as the last one left and the doors hissed shut, James head turned down and let out a sigh. He had seen the look in his officers' eyes, even though their facial expression were blank, he can see that their morale was low from homesickness.
Most UNSC serviceman felt it whenever they were deployed away from their homes and families. Even during the war against the Covenant, there was still a decent chance they'd return alive to see them. Now it was likely they would never see them again. His own heart felt like he'd been gripped by ice cold hands whenever he'd think of his wife and daughter back on Reach.
Ever since they left Arcadia in pursuit of Dr Anders, the mission had become drastically unpredictable and became downright horrific when they discovered the flood. Just thinking of it had left a shiver down his spine.
But the worst part of this mission was the sacrifice of the FTL drive. Without it, they were doomed to float in unknown space, with rescue unlikely to ever come as a brutal struggle for survival continued elsewhere against the genocidal monsters known as the Covenant.
A fight they should be fighting in than floating out here wasting away. He thought to himself darkly. For every moment they spent out here, lives are being lost in the thousands in battles, millions for every planet to fall to the Covenant. What if they got to Reach? I-
James closed his eyes and clenched his breath to get control of his emotions; it would not do to let his other officers see him in this state. He cleared these thoughts out of his, shaking his head slightly, whilst walking over to the door that led to the officer's shower and locker room.
Military time and date: 0955 hours, 20th September, 2552
Captain Cutter strode into the bridge, coming to a halt just by his chair, his uniform freshly pressed, head high and emitting an aura of authority. He looked around the bridge, where he was pleased to see that all of his officers were sitting, uniforms neat, manning their workstations and eyes alert, watching their screens for anything their scanners may have picked up.
"Lieutenant Evans, any signal of any kind?" James asked, looking at the dozen of monitors placed above the other screens for anything.
The 26 year old, blonde man at the ops console shook his head, "Nothing Captain, but I did see something for a moment near one of the planet's moon, but it moved out into the dark side of the moon before our camera could catch it." His brow furrowed and a frown appearing as his eyes darted look from screen to screen.
He was a truly solid officer, he'd never seen him show fear or signs from breaking, despite having only served for 5 years and seen horrors that most hadn't seen at his age. Only when his voice crackled during battle and the stress lines visible on his face gave him away on how this war had affected him.
James turned to Lieutenant Polaski, the dirty blonde with green eyes, "How's our course? What's our ETA Lieutenant?"
She spun around in her chair to face the captain and answered "We've had to alter course to avoid getting too close to a nearby asteroid field. Our ETA is now 28 hours, assuming nothing else happens." she answered
She was more expressive than Evans and had a tendency to voice her rather blunt opinions, but she was reliable during battles. She would put on a face of calm and do her duty until the battle had ended. This courage and determination in battle as well as her no-beating-around-the-bush attitude was why she was his second in command.
Although James thought it was rude, he never reprimanded her once as he saw it as a way to vent the stress of navigating the ship through battle after battle. A single mistake whilst plotting courses could mean the deaths of her and the entire crew of up to 11,000 on board.
James observed all screens and debated in his head about his next order for several minutes before he came to a decision.
"Lieutenant Otters, I want you to bring online all weapon systems online, but set them on stand-by. I want them to be ready at a moment's notice."
"Yes sir," Lieutenant Otters acknowledged, typing rapidly to bring on the MAC gun, the deck guns and a dozen archer missile pods. Ah, the man of few words. He was the quietest one of all the bridge officers, rarely saying more than necessary.
"Expecting trouble Captain?" said Serina behind him by the holodeck table.
"I'm not sure, but I'd rather be ready for anything" James responded, looking out of the windows on the bridge, admiring how space was still such a wonder after all this time.
Military time and date: 1057 hours, 21st September, 2552
Inside one of 6 briefing rooms sat all the high ranking officers of the UNSC Spirit of Fire with their data pads on the oval table in front them. At the front of the room was a large screen, which Captain Cutter was standing beside, displaying the list of causalities from the recent campaign. The three Spartans from Red team stood behind the officers, up straight, yet motionless with their heads tilted towards the Captain.
Out of 11,000 personnel stationed aboard the ship, over 2000 are dead including a dozen Commissioned Officers and around 500 remain seriously injured.
"Right, now moving onto our current situation," said Captain Cutter, after discussing promotions, replacements and merging of various units.
"We have found some anomalies from the reactor. So ships fusion reactor has to be shut down for up to 6 months or longer for check-up and repairs to ensure it remains safe and functional. That means we are landing the ship on solid ground on the closest hospitable planet whilst this is underway."
Cutter tapped on his personal data pad, which changed the screen to a view of the planet Serina had found as well as activating a scaled 3D hologram of the planet from the centre of the oval table
"Whilst this is underway, the marine corps and ODST troopers will conduct a reconnaissance of the planet to find any sources of raw material we can use. Then-! "
The holotank next to the holodeck suddenly activates with Serina's avatar appearing, interrupting James "Captain, scans show large numbers of human life signatures on the planet surface! Here are the first close up scans of the planet surface."
The screen behind James changes to a bird's eye view of two continents. It then zooms in on the continent, showing various fields, forests, rivers and mountains that would not seem out of the ordinary on any uninhabited planet. But there is something else that stands out that could not be ignored; Settlements. As the view scrolls across the map, settlements appear in various sizes dotted all over the place.
For a moment, hope and relief appeared on everyone's faces for the first time since the supernova in that Forerunner planet. They had reached UNSC space and found a colony! Surely a UNSC patrol fleet will appear any day and take them home after 21 long years of drifting in space. They can get news about the war, brief FLEETCOM and ONI on the threat of the flood and most importantly, get some well-deserved R and R to see their friends and families!
But a moment later, they had a closer look at the unfamiliar layout of the settlement. That is when everyone noticed that the settlements seemed completely different to the ones from the inner and outer colonies. For one, they looked nothing like the settlements in the inner or even the outer colonies. No large metallic structure or skyscraper buildings. Not even concrete pavements within the settlement or even smooth tarmac roads linking settlements together!
No, instead there were building made entirely of stone, wood or a combination of both. The smaller settlements tended to be entirely made of wood, with an exception to one bigger structure made of stone. Some even had stone walls surrounding the perimeter of their settlement. Nowhere in the UNSC did people construct settlements out of these types of material as there were stronger, sturdier and longer lasting materials to build their houses out of. It didn't even have a space elevator, the first thing any colonists would build when settling down.
It was all very strange to all the officers in the room, even the Captain had a frown, with his eyebrows raised. The Spartans remained still as before, so nobody had any idea what they thought but probably had the same confusion. The silence in the room lasted almost a minute, but felt like an eternity, until one of the officers, Major Gerald Marsh, the second in command of the Marine Corps spoke.
"What do you reckon we should do, sir?"
"We need to know more about the people on the surface before considering deploying troops to the surface," said General Pottes, overall in charge of all ground forces.
"We could deploy a covert force onto the planet and see if we can find out more from afar, sir?" offered Captain Andrea Welskin, the second in command of the ODST or 'Helljumper' detachment aboard the Spirit of Fire.
"No, that will take too long; we can't delay any longer otherwise we risk losing our fusion reactor, which means we'll never leave this planet. We'll have to find a place to land the Spirit."
"But what if they're Innies, sir?" retorted Welskin, a mean snarl appearing on her face. Probably fought during the time of outer colonies insurrection.
"We can't jump to these conclusions, we –! " Whatever the Captain was going to say was lost when Serina interrupted loudly.
"Captain, three Slipspace ruptures have just appeared near the northern pole of the planet. It's the UNSC Running Riot and UNSC Small Punch! And they're under attack by a Covenant ship!"
Military time and date: 1112 hours, 21st September, 2552
If there was any doubt that the war was still going on, they had to look no further than the two ships in the planet's atmosphere in front of them. From their distance, they looked like intact little models of UNSC ships that people buy for their kids.
A closer magnification however, showed quite the opposite. Both ships looked like they had been gouged and dragged with a fiery rod in several areas, but after years of fighting the covenant, this sort of damage was common and not completely fatal. There were piercings through the titanium A battle armour exposing some of the compartments inside.
The worst damage was to the new type of destroyer that Captain Cutter hadn't seen before, but noticed it had some heavy armaments; two MAC guns along with a dozen oversized archer missiles and thicker armour, although it appears the plasma still tore through it. It had taken a couple small plasma torpedoes right to its portside, leaving that part of the destroyer with a black-burnt crater. It was lucky to have survived that; He'd seen ships teared to pieces from one direct hit of the bigger plasma torpedoes.
The only things he knew about the other ship was that it was a frigate and it had just fired it's MAC gun when three streaks of scorched through it, causing secondary explosions all along the ship before bursting into a million fragments.
Captain Cutter stopped midstep towards his chair after running from the briefing room to the bridge. He followed the lines of the plasma to its source, a Covenant CPV class-destroyer only kilometres above where the two ships were. He'd seen those make Swiss cheese out of UNSC ships with similar armour plating as the Spirit of Fire.
The destroyer's shield flickered as three MAC rounds (one from the frigate and two from the destroyer) slammed into it, before flickering off as archer missiles streamed towards it. The ships pulse laser obliterated half of them before they even got close. The rest hit their targets.
"Lieutenant Otter, get that MAC charged and ready to fire! Fire archer pods A1 to F4 on my mark! Serina, get him the firing solutions for the MAC gun on their engines and the archer pods for that Cruiser!" Captain Cutter ordered, watching small explosions bloom on the Covenant destroyer. They had hurt it, but in no way was it out of the fight.
Two of the turrets warmed up, then let loose another devastating stream of plasma at the other destroyer as it turned and moved towards the planets atmosphere. It hit near the top of the starboard and port thrusters, burning through to the other critical parts. It had been a fatal blow as the thrusters flickered as it struggled for power before finally flicking off. Without power, the destroyer drifted down into atmosphere, heat spreading along the nose as it dove through the atmosphere towards the planet below. No life boats were spotted, he noted.
The Spirit of Fire will have to make this one count before the destroyer becomes aware of the Spirit of Fire and do the same.
"Firing solutions acquired," said Serina.
"MAC fully charged and archer missiles primed and ready, sir." confirmed Lieutenant Otters
"Three, two, MARK!"
The bridge shuddered, as the MAC round thundered through the ship to its target, with archer missiles billowing right behind it.
The MAC round hit true, right at the back where the engines where secondary explosions triggering along the hull as hundreds of archer missiles crashing all over, shredding deep into the cruisers. Within minutes, chain reaction of explosions are blasting from within until the reactor destabilised and in a flash, it detonated, disintegrating much of the ship with debris flying outwards. Its destruction prompted a few whoops from the bridge officers and a "Fuck yeah!" from Lieutenant Polaski.
"Lieutenant Polaski, plot a course and prepare to land in this lake here" Pointing at a large lake near the mountains. "Serina, what is the likelihood of anyone surviving from that?" Captain Cutter inquired, gesturing towards the still unidentified ship.
The holodeck on the table lit up, showing a simulation of the trajectory and the fate of the warship and its crew. James walked over, looking over the details of the hologram. It showed the warship landing within the southern mountains in the northern region, with woods surround the area. He also made note of the lake nearby.
"The UNSC Running Riot has activated emergency altitude thrusters and with its current trajectory, I predict it will survive in relatively good shape, but there will be some chance of casualties from the crash."
"If it survives intact, we may be able to salvage their FTL drive and be able to return UNSC space. To Reach." James said the last two words quietly to himself, although, he was sure Serina caught every word. "Tell General Pottes to prepare a task force to rescue the survivors of the Running Riot."
For the time being, there was an actual chance to return home and that warmed the entire ship's heart more than any speech or propaganda ever could.
AN: Oh, this was super hard to get started (No puns). Especially the space battle stuff, but don't worry, the Covenant probably won't be in the story...cause let's face it, we want a story where the people we don't like in game of thrones to get handed by superior technology. Worst part is making the reaction of the people Westeros feel to life, but I didn't want to overdo it just yet. All they see is things in the sky that doesn't make sense.
Also, Unbeta'd
Man there was so many different ways I thought of doing this, here are some of them:
Such as Serina finding the Chief crash landed on Westeros (like A Spartan in Westeros by Agailius), but I felt like it felt too much like nicking someone else's story.
The original start was a scavenge mission, but I kinda wanted it to flow with Serina's last line at the end of Halo Wars, so I had to make up a problem for a reason to land the Spirit. Keeping the Spirit of Fire above in orbit kinda felt like cheating, so I evened it more in favour of the villains to be able to at least reach the thing. Kinda boring when the heroes have a safety place.
There were even changes of when and where they arrived, like for instance, the Spirit arrives at the time of the Greyjoys are looting in the North, resulting in marine teams being deployed to kick their s**t in. Or the plan to have the Spirit of Fire land in Blackwater bay
Also I was thinking of even having Covenant land on Westeros, but it would be making too many plots in a ball of string of plots that'll make your eyes pop and my brain to bleed.
Another one was to have the seperatist elites arrive when looking for the Master Chief, but it felt like it'd be hard to connect.
There's also this other one...okay I'll stop for now.
At the moment, nothing I plan for the future chapters is set in stone. Much of this is going to need your contribution as I can think of a dozen reactions of medieval people reacting to technology, but every one I think of doesn't do it justice. Updates I want to do one every two weeks, but I feel it'll just put pressure and be no fun. So don't expect another chapter for at least another month.
Much of the writing in this is mainly Halo, as that is what I profess in. (Well, the Bungie franchise one) Game of thrones, is a bit iffy for me, so I could really do with some help on that. I'm not lazy, it's just that every time I try to read the first one, I break down cause I know they're going to die.
That's all for now. I need to sleep.
Special Hat