Gateway
Prologue
The old wreckage drifted slowly towards a dark area in space, where one should have been able to see stars, but where there were no stars to be seen. Its occupants did not know the ancient and vastly powerful nature of the machine they were drifting towards, and even if they had, their limited minds would not be capable of truly understanding it. But such speculation is irrelevant, as the wreckage and its passengers drifted slowly towards the ancient structure, and to their respective destinies. They could not know what grand events that they were about to set into motion.
Chapter 1
Intrusion
Part 1: Captain
Captain Kepler stood at the bridge of his Acclamator-1 class star destroyer, one of the many that was serving in the vast Republic Navy during the Clone Wars. His ship carried a full complement of clones, armoured vehicles, and strikecraft. The troops nominally under his command numbered in the tens of thousands, an army capable of leveling entire worlds if left comparatively unopposed. However, unlike a typical star destroyer, his ship was assigned on a critical non-combat mission to a relatively uncharted area of space, and, even more unusually for a single ship separated from a fleet or armada, there were four Jedi Knights aboard.
Of course, being a naval captain, Captain Kepler was not privy to the mission details and objectives. All he knew was that there were Jedi on board that apparently needed an entire army to escort them to a useless, uncharted area of space. What he did not know was that that particular area of space had certain unique properties that led the Republic intelligence corps to suspect that the CIS was performing very strange and potentially dangerous experiments. Obviously, if these were experiments with weapons technology, than they could not be allowed to continue. And so, Captain Kepler and his Jedi moved towards their destination, unaware of the true nature of that little patch of space.
Part 2: Spartan
The Spartans are a legendary group of soldiers, responsible for the survival of humanity, and indeed perhaps the galaxy as a whole. One of their rank in particular, the Master Chief designated John-117, had performed feats seemingly impossible, though he was by this time considered KIA. It would have been a cause of quite some consternation within the news media (and therefore the human public) then, to find that an entire squad of these super soldiers were stowed away aboard a very small picket frigate, not they would ever know.
It's been one hundred years since the battle at Installation 00, and one hundred years since the Human-Covenant war had ended. Humanity remains comparatively weak; despite the great number of pod-born children and the government tax credits to encourage large families, the total human population still only numbers around 12.5 billion, a far cry from the tens of billions during the middle of the war. The resources required to restart the Spartan program only really became available twenty years ago, and the first batch of Spartan-IVs were just entering service. Unlike the controversial Spartan-IIs, Spartan-IVs were willing participants who joined the program at thirteen years of age, making them in some respects inferior. However, like the Spartan-III program, the genetic and biomechanical augmentations were significantly less lethal and possess a nearly 95% success rate. In addition, with the grudging help of the Sangheili, the MJOLNIR armour had been significantly upgraded from previous variants. The technological upgrades more than made up for the decrease in training time and intensity. In theory. The races of the former covenant were more than happy enough to consolidate their own empires. The Sangheili and Jiralhanae (that would be elites and brutes in English) skirmished a few times, but life in the galaxy was largely at peace.
Therefore, the presence of Spartans in a stealth cruiser was a suspicious circumstance. What wasn't known to a majority of the human populace was that the ONI teams investigating the portal generator under New Mombasa weren't just combing for Forerunner technology, which they salvaged plenty of. Their primary objective was to gain control of the slipspace portal generator within. That objective took the many brilliant science teams nearly a century to complete. They sent the rather oddly named Kitten in the portal as a science vessel, but armed it to the teeth with experimental weaponry.
Brian-768 was busily cleaning out his experimental XMP-4a plasma accelerator when the prowler started shaking. Initially, he assumed it was standard turbulence as micrometeorite showers bombarded the prowler's shields, but revised his assessment when the shipboard AI, Caesar, started speaking. "All combat personnel to battle stations, repeat, all combat personnel to battle stations." Brian quickly reassembled his weapon and moved to the elevator to the bridge. The whole ten seconds the elevator took to take him up was excruciating. When he exited, the strangest sight of his life awaited him. "Captain, initiating evasive maneuvers!" "I want scans now!" "Where are we?" The bridge was in chaos, but not, as Brian had feared, because of an unknown enemy attacking. It was from the sight out the main viewscreen, the vast graveyard of ships, using designs a century old. "Must be wreckage from the Battle of the Ark," a random marine commented. Caesar manifested himself in the hologram station, "Based on preliminary scans from the wreckage, that analysis would be highly probable."
Brian's tactical mind quickly kicked in, as he analyzed any potential gain that could be salvaged. Even the Spartan team he was a part of had not been fully briefed on their objectives. They were only told to reconnoiter the area they were sent to for hostiles, as the possibility that the Jiralhanae would attack was still a possibility not very far removed from the minds of many humans and former Covenant races. It was during this analysis that Brian noticed a small light in the distance, like a ship burning up in an atmosphere. He calmly queried Caesar, "Do you detect any bodies with an atmosphere in this area?" "I -" The blinding white flash that emitted from the vicinity of the small light quickly cut out all conversation.
Part 3: Legionary
The Legionary rigidly examined his massive assortment of tools. Besides the extreme discipline and excellent training, well-made and technologically advanced equipment defined the Roman soldier like no other in the known galaxy. The typical soldier carried enough firepower to annihilate entire companies of less advanced armies. This particular legionary was outfitted with the standard body armour with a built in magnetic hard shield, a compact assault carbine that utilized nano-molecularly engineered high-explosive cores for shipboard combat, a modernized legionary shield with built in hard shields and electronic countermeasures, a gauss pistol sidearm, and a recoilless railgun that fired specialized chemical explosive rounds.
After going through the veritable battleship's armament worth of equipment, the Legionary proceeded up to the Roman ship's equivalent of a CIC, where he would receive his unit's orders. The Roman vessel, which had no name, since Romans did not care for such pointless activities as naming their spacefaring vessels, was extremely function based in design, with little room for comfort. The CIC was somewhat more expansive and open, however, with a wide variety of display screens projected in three dimensions for an optimal combat awareness for the combat command staff. It was here that the Legionary, that will henceforth be known as Marcus, stood at attention pending receipt of century (i.e., 100 men, a company) orders from the captain. It was also here that Marcus noticed the expanding blue light and what appeared to be a rending hole in space on the main viewscreen, immediately before the ship was sharply pulled in.
A/N: Well, there's the beginning of my very first fanfiction. I made sure to carefully research the specific statistics of the different factions, ships, weapons, etc. involved, so please notify me of any mistakes. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. To the Halo fans: My brother pointed out that the prowler is also a Brute vehicle in Halo 3. In this chapter, the term is utilized as a UNSC ship class designation, basically any ship with a stealth system with the tonnage of a cruiser or below. Hope you liked it!