The waiting tide… The coming storm… And the inevitable war…
"Why is it that man must fight? Are we so blinded by the realities of our conflicts? Or is there more to this than we can possibly fathom? In any case, the young wait, the weary and the future are there to be written. But what if we were to change the path? To give another people a chance or to give them something they never had known… what about… hope."
Captain Jacob Hartman, New Dawn, Alpha Novara. 2559. OPERATION: HAMMERFALL
/Military Standard Time 17:00/ UNSC Battle Group 07 -New Dawn- Mythic Class Cruiser in orbit over Alpha Novara I
Today is the day that the crew of the New Dawn and humanity truly wished would never have come, the Old Covenant forces have found a Forerunner facility, or to the point a Forerunner Shield World, exactly two weeks ago Old Covenant Loyalists struck the colonies of Sigma Octanus IV again this time in the same place as the Old Covenant.
The remains after the battle shows a significant deposits of minerals not located on the planet and in fact the dig site revealed more, the battle that followed nearly destroyed the relic the Covenant Loyalists were guarding, though hard to decipher the New Dawns' AI Cyrene deciphered and decrypted the hidden message of the forerunners.
The message or 'prophecy' claimed by the Forerunners had built a hidden world from the flood millennia before the outbreak, but the world was difficult to locate as the facility had been long forgotten through their history, the facility was also where many creations of the Forerunners had stored for safe keeping.
And now it had been found once more, though this was not an easy task, the Covenant had them tailing behind attempting to drive their focus elsewhere while the Covenant looked for the ancient star maps that had been left hidden on multiple worlds.
And now the chase was over, but the end wasn't, on the bridge of the New Dawn a tall figured man in his twenties wearing his standard issue naval suit with matching coloured insignia stood out looking at the holo-tank, he asked to Cyrene as he bit down on an antique smoke pipe.
"Cyrene, I have to know, did we lose them?"
"I think we both know the answer." She replied as she materialised on the projector.
"How'd they…" Cyrene interjected. "Get here first? I had limited FTL space and short time before they jumped. And the Covenant slip-space has always been faster even with the new engines and upgrades they just stayed ahead."
Jacob looked to the world below, beautiful, almost like Reach. Then again home was never too far away, the view also showed the Covenant cruiser sitting above the planet's surface, and the surrounding space of their previous engagement, there were a few UNSC ships in orbit wrecked by Covenant firepower.
All that now remained was the New Dawn and its escort attachment corvettes and external rig, the battle for Alpha Novara had finished only a few hours ago, the loss was high and now the crew was too exhausted to continue, the last remanent of the their battle group of twenty.
The Covenant had lost most of their ships in the engagement but still had a cruiser and frigate still running and these were bad odds already, but the crew also knew of their little surprise for the Covenant.
"Cyrene I think it's to wake the crew." She asked. "All of them?"
"Yes all of them."
New Dawn Cryogenic Bay 5
Down in the Cryo bay the console for the bay from the bridge lit up, the ensign in charge read the orders. [Cyrene to Cryo bay, begin procedure {initiate cold start} heat the pods up and prepare Spartan IV unit 7.] The ensign quickly rushed to the command console.
"Engineer Williams to the command, bring the pods to cold start were going live in 5 minutes."
Down in the bay the engineers squared the non-essentials away as the pods covered in frost melted, the sudden hissing of releasing air and gas and any other person knew to clear away.
"Their hot, blowing the pins in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…"
The pods of the select few opened with steam venting out, now all that was needed to do was the visual and vitals check before the Spartans were released, there were five near identical armoured masses inside of the pods, some were camouflage coloured and others were matte black, and some looked like ancient samurai warriors.
But all in all they were Spartan IV unit 7.
IV-021 Thom, IV-084 Mitchel, IV-A14 Winter, IV-A64 Caroline and IV-017 Jonathan all awoke from their cryo sleep, though the uncomfortable from the sudden wake up they were ready to get going, and more so when the evaluation were getting done, but the captains orders for shake down before they were dismissed.
017 Jonathan felt the static coming off of his MKVII armour as his shields began their quick recharge the new shield enhancements from ONI since the end of the Covenant war, elites were reluctant to hand over some sharing of technology to humanity as well as UNSC but there wasn't much to share either than AI tech and a few other things, but since the treaty of New Mombasa memorial site humanity has come a long way.
He stepped out of the shield station and to the bench where the others were sitting, though it was impressive that a long and rather small bench could possibly hold three other Spartans it was one of the few new things used by the UNSC, specifically the Poly-Carbon iridium alloy used in more and more things including parts of the Spartan armour.
The improvements of other things like better ship armour and new shield generators for UNSC vessels and civilian UEG and ICF (Independent Colonial Federation) which had vastly improved past relations, the new slip-space drives and trans-light communications has also been added.
But none have had the better of all the new upgrades such as Spartan IV, ONI had survived but something's from their past came back, people eventually figured out the SPARTAN projects and openly opposed the idea in the courts with the ICF.
The project then became a public fiasco four years back with the launch of IV, the means of justifying the creation of super human weapons by using the innocence of children horrified many colonists and many demanded the project to be closed and the children compensated for their lost lively hoods. Though this was nearly impossible as most were indoctrinated into service and they had lost their families, in the Spartan III case that was not IV, the families had signed an agreement in which their children made their choice to leave, many were sceptical and the children themselves were interviewed and assessed on this agreement, all but a few said they were uncomfortable and the few that said so told them. "If this is helps everyone now and later, my mum and dad as well then, I will do it."
This had justified the means in which these children were indoctrinated into service, not by brainwashing but minor subliminal messages and reasoning, most of the children were actually healthy and intelligent enough to understand what they were doing. Even so human rights activists and colonists still opposed the use of children, but the project still went through in 2555, the ONI did release the program or just snippets on what they had improved upon to increase the life expectancy of the children.
The program training itself was reviewed by the public over the course of their training and the families were kept in touch, but still they had to be isolated to ensure no distractions in later years of their lives and to make sure that they didn't rebel against the UNSC.
But enough reminiscing, Jonathan had a job to do, with the last of the team's status green they moved off to the bridge for their briefing, as they navigated their way across the 1.75km Heavy Mythic class cruiser, they saw the usual routine for before ground operations and preparation.
ODST rushing about with their armour and gear on, the famous flaming skull insignia on their black shoulder pads, and the rush of marines getting suited for combat, yes this was the daily life of the Spartan, the pelicans and albatross drop-ships getting prepped for combat drop and the new Sabre fighters that came out of production.
The final piece was the window they passed as they approached the bridge, out in the vacuum of space sat four corvettes that provided the extra defences for the New Dawn, though they were actually hooked up with a rig against the sides of the New Dawn.
The rigs were hexagonal dock work structures added for quick refits to small assault pack vessels going into full scale planetary assault, then again the New Dawn was doing the very thing though they were only to engage a Covenant frigate while distracting the Cruiser.
The corvettes themselves were unlike that of the older variants that were on earth, these were refitted with shields and extra space for more shuttles and more weaponry, standard with 4 Archer missile pods, 2 Heat missile pods, 4 rail cannons and a dozen point defence turrets the UNSC corvettes had more firepower than that of a frigate, this included a smaller but more faster firing MAC.
Jonathan and the other Spartans arrived at the bridge, moving past the rush to get the ship prepared for the first stage of the assault the bridge crew worked tirelessly to ensure the function of the ship, but there was one person that the team knew to meet, Captain Hartman.
"Captain Hartman, Sir." Jonathan said with a salute. "At ease, soldier."
The Spartan team just stood watching, and then the captain continued. "As you know were sending you and the first company of Colonel William's ODST and the third Armour support to capture the relic site, meanwhile the New Dawn will engage the frigate and cruiser in orbit. This has to be done fast and efficiently, understood?"
A chorus of 'Sir' rang through the bridge.
"Good, we have to capture the relic point and then extract it before the Loyalists figure what to make of it, this is our first priority, I hope to see you all back, Cyrene."
Cyrene gave in her tactical analysis of the operation. "Spartans, we have three main points of entry, first is the open area between the structure and the open field, this area funnels out into the back door of the Covenant positions, but there is heavy AA and we can't supply enough Hawks and Sparrow gunships to alleviate the resistance until the AA guns are down."
The hologram highlighted the areas necessary for the operation, and the entry pints to the AA guns, there also highlighted supposed enemy movements within the area.
"We'll have to strike hard and fast and you are the best at what you do." With this the Spartans headed down to prepare.
18:29- 1minute to begin operation
Jonathan and his fellow Spartans were strapped into their seats, now all they had to do was the final countdown, pre-flight check all systems are good, Mitchel-084 was the pilot of the team and the engineer, he had been invaluable in combat and their technical problems.
With the counter going down Mitchel had to concentrate on the drop, any second, five, four, three, two, and one.
The thrusters kicked in propelling the drop-ship down at sonic speeds to the planet, as suddenly the space around them was lit up, MAC fire form the New Dawn exchanged fire with the Covenant frigate and the corvettes. From Mitchel's windscreen he could see ordnance detonating across the space, Jonathan held tight along with his fellow Spartans as they hit the atmosphere, the sudden shaking outside the cabin as they quickly exited the lower atmosphere suggested the AA were active.
"Damn, evasive action, look out the LZ is hot, repeat LZ is hot."
The Spartans unbuckled and stood facing the side doors of the drop-ship, the new pelican had installed side doors with mounted weapons to quickly deploy troops and recon and shock trooper teams.
Looking outside as the doors opened, revealed dozens of pelicans and albatross drop-ships deploying tanks and Warthogs, Jonathan walked to the back and popped open the hatch, the back had one transport hog.
Descending the team exited the ship, with the Mitchel included, the co-pilot took the controls as the team made land fall, filing out one by one the warthog dropped to the ground with them.
The sudden impact of the environment was definitely hostile as the sun baked the ground they stood upon, the sand filled the desolate landscape around them, and this was reinforced with the sudden rushing sounds of plasma fire and rifles and missiles flying through the air.
The battle on the field below to the first AA guns revealed heavily fortified positions and troop concentrations; Jonathan walked to the edge of the high ground the stood upon and said this to his team.
"If they want war, we'll give them war."
The rush of fighters over head with the main force catching up to push down, he knew what he meant and he really meant this.