Halo Halcyon End

by Anaximander

Would would have happened if the Covenant had won? What would the galaxy be like if Earth had fallen? Halo Halcyon End is an alternate universe story, taking place far in this dark future.

1. Chapter 1

Halo – Halcyon End

The armor of the small shuttle glinted in the slightly blue sunlight of the Amaraes System. It was a drift; its engines had detonated after pulling out of hyperspace. The crew of the Centurion was taking no chances though. They had been through far too much to screw up now.

The Admiral stood at the center of the bridge, his hands moving across the holographic tactical display with a speed that could only come from years of experience. He shifted the view multiple times, looking for Covenant ships that would be using the ship as a distraction.

"Sensors, switch the view to long range."

Immediately the holographic display doubled in size, and the ship became a small green dot with a label on the screen. The space was automatically displayed in cubes, using the ship as the center of the grid. Fleets would use the command ship as the center of the grids, and all locations were relative to the ship. Space was far too large to "graph", it was much easier to define the battle space on a case-by-case basis.

There were several green dots on the map now, signifying the scout fighters. Each one extended the range of the ship's sensors. There were several brown dots as well, signifying objects with no Electrical signal. Their course was plotted on the map, as well as the flight paths of the scout fighters.

The Admiral pressed the gold and blue piece in his ear, and used the neural circuits to open a channel to the scout fighters.

"Blackbird 1 and 2. Intercept Course, Undesirable 1. See if you can get a good look at it."

The fighters acknowledged through the channel and soon the yellow lines of their projected courses switched to intercept the Purple dot on the map. The dot had no electrical signal they could detect, but it was high in man-made polymers. Polymers used only on UNSC ships showed up like this.

Soon they were too close to the ship to show up as separate dots on the long-range map. He touched the map with his hand and turned it clockwise, zooming in the display. Soon the two green dots, signifying Blackbird 1 and 2, closed in on the ship. They stopped. The Admiral checked all incoming radio signals. None were coming from Blackbird 1 or 2.

"Blackbird 1 and 2, status," he spoke calmly into his earpiece. He considered calm to be one of the most important things an Admiral could have.

The Blackbirds responded a couple of seconds later, "Sir… it's a Spartan."