This is a story about the heroic actions of a handful of Spartan III's as they fend off the Covenant from the Planet Quelt, a once prosperous place that has descended into anarchy with the guiding hand of the Insurrection. This is the prologue to the story.
Prologue: Terra Firma
Planet Digamma 6, commonly know as Quelt, was discovered in 2503 by refugees fleeing the nearby planet Gadde, after the planet fell into the hands of the mighty Covenant. The Covenant is a conglomerate of alien races, with little similarities between them, except for the concept of "The Great Journey". For the residents of Gadde, their home lay on the path of the Covenant's "Great Journey" and was destroyed, or "glassed", by the Covenant Corvette-Class Bastion of Clarity. The people of Gadde found Quelt by accident; a navigational error in their small jumper craft sent several ships crashing violently into the planet's rocky surface. Only eleven survived the crash. A few wandered off into the dusty, toxic air, never to be seen again. Two survivors, Gengori Havanas and his wife Tenora spent days frantically trying to radio any UNSC (United Nations Space Command) Cruisers in the area. On their 7th day on the planet's surface, the Gengori made contact with the crew of the cruiser Carpe Diem and were relieved to find warm beds and fresh food awaiting them on board.
In the following months, the UNSC Carpe Diem and other battle cruisers bombarded Gadde till the weapons operators couldn't tell the planet apart from the huge asteroids that flew rampantly around the sector. The four remaining survivors of Gadde watched from the Carpe Diem as MAC Blasts and missile strikes decimated their home. When the UNSC had decided to stop, little remained of the Havanas' once green and lively planet. Now, the Havanas' were faced with a painful ultimatum. Stay with the UNSC, or return to Earth. They went to Hyrum Manassas, the UNSC Chairman of Planetary Colonization, and pleaded with him for a charter and a permit to colonize the planet that saved their lives from the Covenant. A month later, Gengori, Tenora, and 400 other colonists, aboard the Prospector's Ghost arrived at Quelt. However, they were soon faced with several problems; first, Quelt's atmosphere was comprised of less that 10% oxygen, and less than 25% nitrogen. Most of the air was a dangerous mixture of methane and sulfur gasses. As a result, the Prospector's Ghost couldn't enter the atmosphere. Wary of this, Manassas sent another ship, Beyond the Shadow of Doubt armed with the P.H.K (Planetary Hospitability Kit) to clear the atmosphere. The process was slow and painstaking, requiring HAZMAT crews to regularly inspect the machine as it converted the bitter gasses into clean air. After almost eight months, Gengori became the first person to breathe the clean air on the planet's surface. With the clean air came many new species of plants, never before discovered by scientists. As the atmosphere cleared, so did the water. Soon, the seas of the once dry planet became filled with crystal clear water. Gengori felt the first raindrops fall on Quelt four months after the P.H.K was activated.
Soon, scientists, chemists, biologists, reporters, and soldiers arrived, and the population of Quelt grew from 500 to 50,000 in a few short years. Soon, several distinct cities developed, with the gleaming towers of Ecladia at its center. The planet's four continents soon became their own distinct cultures, and soon, Ecladia opened the Legislative Assembly, with delegates from each of Quelt's quarters, as they were called. Representatives from Barron, Satin, Vennin, and Henden met yearly to discuss issues of importance.
One issue, however, came up more than any other: The Insurrection. The Insurrection found its roots in the Outer Colonies, where groups of disgruntled colonists that demanded independence from Earth, and it's leaders were willing to sacrifice any amount of men to obtain it. While in the rest of the colonized universe the Insurrection had been all but erased, on Quelt, it grew until its number far outgrew those of the Legisltive Assembly's army. Soon, the Assembly Hall at Ecladia was surrounded, ransacked, and burnt to the ground. The planet's frightened chairmen fled and the planet sank into a deep depression. The planet's cities were pillaged and not even the walled city of Dempsey was spared. The lights atop the Topaz Towers died out forever on December 25th, 2530. Most of the inner cities were abandoned, and the members of high society either fled the planet or died on it. Gengori, now well into his ninties, was killed during an Insurrectionist suicide attack on the New Geneva Spaceport.
In 2535, an anonymous informant from the Beta-5 division of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) arrived with news of a "development". In 2512, researchers in the Beta-5 group developed a complex exoskeleton system for soldiers, coined Project MJOLNIR. Five years later, an ambitious group of ONI officials, known as Section 3 in the official reports, selected a group of 150 children, aged 5 to 7 years, to become the next breed of super-soldiers, humanities trump card; The Spartans. After the success of the Spartan II program (the first was kept under secrecy due to the circumstances surrounding the program's failure), many, including one Colonel James Ackerson, wanted to play on this success.
When news of the Insurrections hostile take over of the planet reached the ears of Fleet Admiral Stephen Tanner, he was mortified, and promptly asked UNSC high command for clearance to lead an invasion. However, Tanner's fleet was far out of slip-space range for a conceivable journey. Instead, Tanner was given thirteen Spartan-III super soldiers, which he was free to use at his leisure. The informant stated that ONI had "tactically significant reasons for reclaiming and holding Quelt from the Insurrection and, if it should come to it, the Covenant ". By 2550, all but three of the Spartan-III's were dead. The remaining three, Amry-B081, Sewell-G222, and Benjamin-B238, were grouped together under the designation Silver Team. Each wary of the fate of the other ten Spartans, the team was hesitant and stagnant to act on Tanner's orders.
Realizing that he could no longer continue operations on Quelt, Tanner left the planet to cut his losses, and the Spartans were left to their own devices. ONI was livid, and sent several representatives to UNSC high command on Earth. They were met with less than a warm welcome. Sensing that the UNSC would no longer help them, ONI dispatched the elite Headhunter unit Whiskey Team to Quelt to put down the rebellion and find Silver Team. Seven years later, while en route to Quelt, Whiskey Team's two-man team came under fire from a Covenant Corvette, non other than the Bastion of Clarity, the same ship that had brought about the discovery of Quelt thirty years before. While one Spartan, Charlotte-A046, narrowly escaped, her partner, Stanford-A009, was not so lucky. He was struck by a plasma-torpedo while the pair fled from a fleet of Covenant Banshee fighter craft. Overhearing Whiskey Team's numerous distress calls, the nearby UNSC Cruiser Dangerous Pride rushed to the scene and crippled the fleeing Corvette with a Shiva-Tactical Nuke strike. An unconscious Charlotte –A046 was brought aboard carrying only a combat knife and Stanford's dog tags. Captain Dennis Ramsey, a seasoned veteran of many battles against the Covenant with over forty confirmed ships neutralized, took the reigns of ONI's military exploits on Quelt. Since then, Silver Team, under the leadership of Spartan-046, has completed dozens of operations in the traditional ONI discretion, usually cleaning up small Insurrection outposts scattered around the planet in what some would later call "… a gross misallocation of valuable resources." The Spartan team gained infamy among the Insurrection, eventually earning the title of "Boogy Men".
Meanwhile, in the ruins of Gadde, the Covenant war machine lay in wait, lurking. Led by the fearless Kidar 'Sykdam, known to the UNSC as "That Split-Lip Sonofabitch", the Covenant's sheer numbers seemed unstoppable. Soon, the Covenant Capitol Ship Indomitable Will arrived undetected and moved into position, waiting to claim something buried under the surface of Quelt. Rumors circulated amongst UNSC ranks that the Covenant was planning something big. As one soldier said "We couldn't have been sure what it was but… it was just sort of a feeling we had, that something bad was going to happen."
Our story begins on December 13th, 2553. By now, Silver Team has been operational for almost three years. The squad, despite being active for so long, still acts as a dysfunctional family. Captain Dennis Ramsey has kept his watchful eye over Quelt, and slowly but surely, the Insurrection is being snuffed out. Silver Team is currently en route to a small fishing village, Delmargio, to investigate Insurrectionist activity in the area.