{AFTER HUMAN-COVENANT WAR}
Ice vapor drifted past in space, making a slight haze over the crags of a small astroid designated astroid 84361-890. It was a small, unremarkable piece of floating debris, jumbled up billions of larger and smaller astroids in the massive Shayuum-Elecifer system's astroid belt. This area was of had no affiliation to either the humans nor the Elites, and was desolately lifeless, inhabited only by micro-organisms on the wasteland planet Alphos.
Nothing was supposed to be living out here. Nothing. Neither race bothered to patrol the area.
No one cared about 84361-890. But on a close examination, it would be revealed that astroid 84361-89 emitted gamma radiation and EMP waves at the sametime everyday. A more detailed examination would reveal that objects seemed to materialize from the astroid, then fade away a few seconds later. An even closer examination would reveal taht the astroid seemed to have a large metal mass inside of it.
But no one cared.
-1 MATCH FOR SEARCH QUERY *PATH OF LIGHT; SCOUT*-
[Kig-yar scout ship; Path of Light]
[ATTEMPTING TO ACCESS MISSION LOGS]
[]
[]
[]
[ERROR]
[RESTRICTED CLASS 4]
-OVERRIDE 213.434-
[OVERRIDE VALIDATED]
[RESCAN? Y/N]
-Y-
[SCANNING]
[ERROR]
[MISSION LOGS CORRUPTED]
[RECONSTRUCT? Y/N]
-Y-
[CONFIRMED]
[RECONSTRUCTING]
[]
[]
[ERROR]
[SECURITY THREAT DETECTED]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[SYSTEM OVERLOAD]
[PRIMARY SYSTEM MALFUNCTION]
[ERROR]
[SYSTEM SHUTDOWN]
[/////////.............]
[;';.////////////////]
[ERR.../////////////..........
[SHUTDO'/.........//]
[///////////THREAT./..//////////]
[SYSTE////////////////////..............]
[SYS//////OAD//////////MALFUN///////////C.21.4FD.6]
[/////////SHUT//WN IMM//NENT]
[D//A C/R/S P/RG/D///////]
[OVER///// OVERLOA/D]
[//////////...........//////]
[ERR...////]
[ERROR]
...
...
...
...
[SYSTEM REBOOT]
[SCANNING SYSTEM INTEGRITY]
[THREAT DETECTED]
[QUARANTINE? Y/N]
-Y-
[SYSTEM 100 PERCENT FUNCTIONING]
[PLEASE ENTER ACCESS CODES]
-567.2314.856-
[VALIDATING CODE]
[VALIDATED]
-OPEN SEARCH-
-SEARCH KEYWORD *PATH OF LIGHT; SCOUT*-
[AREA OF SEARCH?]
-INTERNAL MEMORY-
[SEARCHING]
[]
[]
[]
[1 MATCH FOUND]
[KIG-YAR SCOUT SHIP; PATH OF LIGHT]
-ACTIVATE SECURITY AI-
[AI ACTIVATED]
-ACCESS MISSION LOG-
[ACCESSING]
{SECURITY THREAT DETECTED. AI NEUTRALIZING THREAT}
{QUARANTINE FAILED}
{VIRUS ATTEMPTING TO ACCESS SYSTEM}
{ERROR}
{BLOCKING VIRUS}
{VIRUS EMBEDDED INTO DATA; QUICKLY LOOK FOR WHAT YOU NEED}
[MISSION LOG ACCESSED]
[NOTE: MISSION LOGS PARTIALLY ERASED. EVIDENCE OF FILE ALTERATION DETECTED]
-DISPLAY MISSION LOGS-
=KIG- YAR SCOUT SHIP, PATH OF LIGHT=
=SHIPMASTER : ZHAR CHUR'R=
=COM ID: 367.2435.964
=MISSION HISTORY=
=HUMAN PLANET 36487.967=
=HUMAN PLANET 36489.893=
=HUMAN PLANET 36481.153=
=ELITE COLONY WORLD EXALTED PATH=
=LAST UPDATED LOCATION=
=IN SLIPSPACE EN ROUTE TO SHAYUUM-ELECIFER SYSTEM=
-CHECK LAST UPDATED DATE-
[APPROXIMATELY 720 CYCLES AGO]
-INITIATE COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY-
[COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY INITIATED]
[INPUT ID]
-567.2314.856-
[ID VALIDATED]
[INPUT RECIEVER ID]
-367.2435.964-
[TRANSMITTING]
[]
[]
[]
[ERROR]
[NO ACCESS POINT FOR ID 367.2435.964 DETECTED]
{RELEASING DATA}
{ERROR}
{DATA HAS BEEN PARTIALLY RELEASED. VIRUS AUTO-DOWNLOADED, EMBEDED INTO MY CENTRAL CORE. INITIALIZING SELF-DESTRUCT PROTOCAL}
The Elite sat back, looking over the information he could find about the ship Path of Light.
All his effort in the last year had lead him to the ship. All his hard work turned up this. And this database, one that cost so many lives to obtain that he hated to think about it, had virtually no information on it.
He had suspected someone on the inside didn't want anyone to know about this ship, and the corrupted data combined with the virus hidden within the data only validated his suspicions. The virus was a cunningly made one as well. As the computer accessing the files reconstructed the corrupted data, it was literally making it's own doom. The virus was a series of code inside the program, and would be completely inert and harmless in a corrupted form, passing initial anti-virus scans. If one had looked at the code in it's corrupted form, reconstructed with pen and paper, one would discover that the virus was actually essential to run the code, and therefore could not be written out of the code. Only with an extremely advanced anti-virus software and a security AI did the computer escape from the sure doom of meltdown. And even then, the AI was destroyed in the process, and the computer rendered useless until a maintaince officer came and completely reset the system, and replaced the central core.
The Elite emerged from his train of thought, and glanced back at the holo-screen. At least he had one clue to go off of. The last known location of the Path of Light. The Shayuum-Elecifer system.
Ulrich dived sideways, tucking in his legs for a roll to his side. He cleared the barrel of his sidearm, and fired. The remaining rebels fired back, chipping away at the rubble that Ulrich was sheltering behind. The market square he was passing through had erupted into a firefight.
Ulrich holstered his sidearm, and pulled out his rifle, a caseless SMG with a surpressor, an underslung MasterLock system(underslung shotgun basically) and a field- rifle scope. And in his pack, he had an underslung grenade launcher system. He popped up, and fired twin bursts of bullets into the opposition. The full-metal jacket rounds made short work of outdated rebel ballistic armor, punching straight through as if the armor was rice paper.
The opposition returned fire, and was bolstered by the sight of arriving reinforcements for them. 2 armored trucks filled with rebels, ready to fight and die. A rebel sniper set up in a building on the far side of the square.
Ulrich huddled closely to the pile of rubble, and keyed into his COMlink.
"Hornet team Bravo-4. This is Red-1, I need some anti-armor here. Some suppression fire would be welcome too."
"Roger, Red-1. Bravo-4 moving in."
"Bravo-4, target these points." Ulrich said, highlighting the two trucks and the sniper with NAV points.
"Affirmative Red-1. On our way. ETA 2 minutes to your location. Bravo-4 out."
Ulrich tried to raise a link to the rest of his team, but all he got was static. So instead, he flicked the acknowledgement light in his helmet to red, and broadcast it to the rest of his team. Hopefully they would receive the signal. His pod was knocked from it's course by an AA round that went off in close proximity from Ulrich's pod. It was only by sheer luck that Ulrich survived.
Ulrich ran his hand over his gear, and selected a smoke grenade and a flashbang from his inventory. Ulrich pulled the pin on the smoke grenade, and dropped it at his feet. He pulled the pin of the flashbang when he dropped the smoke grenade, cooked the flashbang, and tossed in in front of the rubble pile he was sheltering behind.
He knew that if he smoked and tried to run, he'd be gunned down. So, he smoked out, getting the attention of all the rebels, who were expecting him to rush out, then tossed a flashbang up and over, blinding the rebels, leaving him a free escape.
Ulrich sprinted away from the rebels, to a long ridge of rubble that ran from oneside of the square to the other. Ulrich distinctly recalled that he had vaulted over this very ridge to access the square not 5 minutes ago.
He leapt over the ridge, and crouched down. Readying his SMG, he stood and took out the rebels he could see with precise bursts of fire.
Ulrich checked his mission timer. Only 30 secs had passed since he called in air support.
The rebels in the trucks finally disembarked, and assembled into loose fireteams of 10. Peeking over the rubble, he saw that a one team was setting up mortars and anti-vehicle weapons. Ulrich cursed under his breath. Those heavy weapons would bring down Bravo-4 with relative ease.
Ulrich sprayed down the oppostion, trying to pin them down long enough for him to eliminate the heavy weapons. Ulrich changed the clip, and replaced the MasterLock system with the underslung grenade launcer.
Ulrich stood again, and pulled the trigger for the underslung. There was a slight bang, followed by a foom! sound. The grenade shot out of the barrel, headed straight for the heavy weapons team.
The grenade had barely cleared the barrel when Ulrich turned and fired on the closest fire team, peppering them with SMG rounds.
Ulrich then realized, a cold hard feeling pooling in his guts, that he had made an elementary mistake. His flank was left open for another rebel fireteam to freely shoot and try to kill Ulrich. Ulrich realized in the same flash that this was because he was used to his team covering for him. As he realized this fatal mistake, the combined fire of the rebel team slammed into his right side, searing straight through his armor and cleanly exiting out the other side.
Ulrich spun, knocked off balance, his HUD bloodstained, cracked, and blitzed with fuzz. HIs vision swam in and out of focus, blackness pooling at the edge of his sight, and dark blue spots appearing in his central field of view. Ulrich felt himself falling, almost in slow motion.
He fell onto his back, facing up. His head bounced up an inch once, and he was still. A strange hissing noise filled his ears.
The last thing he saw, before the blackness closed around him, was the beautiful blue sky streaked with dark, crimson blood.
-Human Frigate-class ship; Resolute; Special status: Prowler refit-
Odd sat down on the locker bench, and mopped up his sweaty face with a towel. Odd had just completed an intense 4-hour workout, need to keep a Spartan in shape.
Odd got up, and put on the unarmored suit the Marines wore when off duty. It had been upgraded since the first Halo ring, and had a thin layer of nano crystals in the chest area designed to disperse plasma shots and provide minimal protection against low-caliber weapons. The brass had decided for these upgrades since sometimes, there just wasn't time to strap on the full armor, and something was better than nothing. An added bonus was that this upgrade was cheap, and easy to apply across the entire armed forces, including Navy. Odd had gotten one, and but he decided it wasn't enough. He took it upon himself, and added 2 more layers of reactive diamonite nanocrystal, to the front back, and thighs of his suit. The diamonite was charged by a battery that was in the padded back of the suit. (Odd had also replaced the foam inside the pads with silk-weave first grade Kevlar).
Diamonite, when a current is run through, will flex in a certain way to the prescince of magnetic currents. The shtronger the current, the more protection the crystal provides. This means, when a bullet hits the crystal, the bullet, just touching the crystal, will alter the current and the cyrstals would instantously flex to deflect the projectile. Another thing was, Diamonite is extremely effective against plasma weapons, as weapons that used plasma as a projectile uses magnetic currents to shape the charge. The diamonite would flex, and discharge a slight electrical charge that would weaken the plasma's cohesion, and it's oblique surfaces would disperse the plasma away. In tests on diamonite armor agaist plasma, the armor survived unscathed from long-meduim range shots, and successfully dispersed plasma rifle/pistol shots 60 percent of the time. The downside, the armor would usually magnitze in place after a few shots, rendering it useless.
Odd exited the locker rooms and returned to the secondary armory, that was converted for Odd's use as a barrack. In there was his armor, and it's repair kit, his modified weapons, and an assortment of other equipment that Odd had packed for this journey.
FLEETCOM had just an hour ago had patched through to the Resolute a new mission for Odd. Odd was to infiltrate a rebel facility, dug deep underground, that was the headquarters of the main resistance above ground. Battleships in orbit could not destroy it, for a) they did not know the exact location of it, and b) it would by most likely be too deep to blast away from orbit.
Odd's job was to find the base, infiltrate it, gather as much intel as he could, including troop size, troop movements, leader identites, etc. and place a beacon inside of the base to mark for groundside UNSC troops. And he was to do this without getting caught, or the rebels suspecting he was there.
Afterwards, he would help spearhead the attack into the base, and use his knowledge of the base to destroy key points before the rebels could rally together a defense.
Easy enough Odd muttered sarcastically under his breath.
A voice cracked over the COM. "Spartan D-027, report to the bridge immiediately.
"Sir, reporting as requested." Odd saluted.
"At ease, soldier." replied Commander Zhao.
"I have been made aware of your new mission. FLEETCOM wants you dirtside ASAP. Your resources are limited to this ship right now. We believe there is an Insurrectionist sympathizer that is leaking info to the groundside rebels."
"Yessir. I am taking a HEV to planetside. What are my evac options?"
"You will not be evacuated. FLEETCOM has decided that you must stay amongst the rebels, just as a backup in case the Insurrection manages to rally together faster than we can push into the installation."
"Yessir." Odd snapped right and left the deck.
A hour later...
Super heated air whipped past the pod, clawing at it's ceramic surface. Inside, Odd was jostled around as the HEV hit rough air pockets in the outer edge of the atmostphere. There was a small screen in front of Odd's faceplate, displaying data from the pod's sensors. A little circular temperature indicator sarted turning from yellow to red. Another showed the altitude, a blur of numbers going straight for zero. Odd tapped a few buttons, programing for a reverse thrust 20 seconds earlier than normal, to account for the weight of his armor. A ETA timer flashed green. 45 seconds to impact.
Odd began his usual equipment check. Green across the board. His eyes flashed across to the altimeter. 7000 feet.
He uslung a SMG and charged the firing lever. A small camera started relaying the view below him. A dense green jungle streched out below him. Odd spotted a splotch of gray about 5 miles east of the LZ. A snag. There wasn't supposed to be any rebels within 25 miles.
The altimeter flashed red. 1000 feet. His ETA started flashing a second later. 15.
Odd braced himself on the lower blast plate and assumed a landing position. The chute balloned out, jerking the pod back. A small thruster engaged, further slowing down the HEV. The altimeter flashed and stopped at 60.
The walls of the HEV blew outwards, flapping back into the wind. The cage was next to go. All that was left was the blast plate, which fell away.
Odd landed in a crouch, SMG out. A perfect HEV deployment and landing.
A/N: A HEV is actually supposed to do this, not actually landing on the ground, contrary to the HALO video games. An HEV is supposed to eject it's rider at 20 feet and the soldier lands like that. Or, at least i think it suupoosed to be like this. If it isn't I still like my version better :)
Odd rechecked his equipment. Good to go. His HUD wasn't picking up anyone in his immidiate vinicity. Odd set off for the pod. If there was rebel activity just 2 miles away, camoflauging the pod would be a crucial step in avoiding detection. Plus, there was a transponder aboard the crash cage, on a encoded UNSC COM bandwith, designed especially for this mission to allow the Prowler to deliver Odd more supplies. Speaking of which, my first supply drop should be arriving just about now... Odd thought to himself. Sure enough, there was a small black streak in the air, norht of his current position. A NAV beacon flashed on for a breif moment, then died out. His suit's HUD automatically marked the loaction in the pre-downloaded topographical map Odd had gotten installed into his suit right before he left.
Odd opened up his suit's COMlink, and set it to scan for any Insurrectionist chatter. The scanner homed in on the C - band. Static crackled in Odd's ear,as the suit broke through the channels encryptions, then resolved to clear tones.
"Sir, patrol team 1 spotted something to our west, something like an astroid."
"An astroid? How many?"
"Just two. The second one was smaller, and landed what looked like close the first one."
"No. That would be a UNSC HEV. Followed by a supply drop. I think they dropped a UAV unit here. No way they would've dropped just one soldier. Keep on high alert. Send out scout teams. Destroy it before it can relay any information about this outpost back the UNSC. They don't yet know that this is here, and I want to keep it that way."
"Yes sir."
Odd swore. The rebels were tipped off that there was UNSC activity around. Even though they guessed incorrectly, they still were getting into high alert, which would make his mission all that much harder.
The COMlink crackled to life again.
"Sir, we have a fix on the LZ of the HEV. We are mustering the search parties to loacte it and destroy it."
"Good. Keep me informed on what is happening."
"Yessir."
Odd swore again. Now he would have to race to claim the drop pod and the supply drop as well. He started off at a brisk jog, guided by the suit's TTMU.
Theo loved flying. He loved it so much he joined the UNSC Naval Acedamy. 5 years later, he had flown multiple different crafts, excelling in combat operations in each one. He had flown Longswords primarily, and had served in the space battles of Reach, Sigma Octanus IV, as well as the space battle over Earth, and was famed for outflying his combat instructor the first time he was allowed to fly.
Now, he was diverted to the rebel front, to Hornet divisions. He was assigned to a Gunship-class Hornet. The mecs back at the hangar had removed the extra ammo drums strapped to the sides of the Hornet, and replaced them with a single harness on each side. There was a shortage of Hornets, and the field ops HQ had to make do with what it had. Plus, HQ thought it would be a good idea if there was a heavier armed, heavier armored Hornet on hand to provide support.
He cruised high above the city, then dived steeply.
"Sniper team, prepare for landing!" His copilot's voice crackled over the COM to the pair of Spec Ops soldiers strapped the the Hornet. Theo clicked the safeties off of the minigun, which was loaded with incineidary rounds, slung underneath the cockpit. His copilot had the autocannon controls, while the missile pods were still under Theo's control.
Theo's Hornet streaked between the buildings, heading for the sniper's LZ, a point near a heavily contested front that would allow the snipers to provide firing support to the UNSC forces already there.
"Marines, we're coming in hot. We're gonna drop fast, and bug out." Theo voiced in over the COMlink. A series of affirmitives followed. The Hornet cleared the last few buildings, into a large square with a vast forest park in the center. the park was about 5-6 acres in size.
"Yo, AA guns! Watch out!"
Theo banked sharply, just as a round detonated where he would've been if he hadn't changed course. Theo centered the minigun approximately where the round had came from. Hundreds of rounds thundered down barrel, obliterating the trees. The rounds set the area ablaze.
Theo continued forward, streaking forth at breakneck speeds. His autopilot activated the autocannon, and was engaging entrenched positions and enemy armor. The Hornet flew up, and dived behind a building. "Sniper team, Go go go!" voiced his copilot, giving the sniper team a go-ahead.
As soon as the snipers cleared the Hornet, Theo fired the vertical fans, sending the craft in a directly vertical takeoff.
Theo clicked on his COM. "HQ, this is Theta- One, we have delivered the team. We are en-route to the support position."
"Negative Theta-One. Some of our boys need extraction ASAP. Some ODSTs got trapped deep in, and they need to be pulled out fast. Our Pelicans are too far away, and our other Hornet squadrons are engaged."
"Affirmative. What are our support options?"
"We're scrambling some Shortswords to help provide close-air support, ETA 30 min."
"Roger that. Theta-One out"
Theo pulled the craft away from the firefights breaking out below. Theo called up the locations of the troopers sent to him, and overlayed their positions into his NAV unit. Theo spooled up the minigun, preparing for an ambush. The missile lock software was constantly scanning for targets, while his copilot was prepping the autocannon to fire.
The Hornet sped towards its destination. As he flew on, he encountered more and more resistance. Most obstructions were taken out quickly and effiecently, with Theo maximizing the abilities of the craft's agiliness to dodge incoming fire.
10 minutes in, Theo finally reached the first stranded ODST. The ODST had dug himself in, using his HEV as a shield. He was packing a LMG 279, keeping the rebels at bay with bursts of fire from the machine gun.
Theo opened up with the minigun, blasting apart a building where rebels were trying to get height on the UNSC soldier. The ODST popped smokescreen, and ran towards the Hornet. Theo and his copilot worked together to keep the rebels back.
"Alright, lets go! He's strapped in." his copilot yelled.
Theo throttled the elevation thrusters, taking the craft up a few hundred feet. Rifle shots came from below a futile attempt to take down the Hornet. Theo sent the ship zooming forward, towards the next soldier.
"Woah, the radar's off the charts! I'm reading heavy signals all around us! Their radar profiles match Dreadnaughts! We've got dreadnaughts!"
Theo swore. "Whats the count?"
"We're getting, 5, 6, 7! We have 7 Dreadnaughts! Wait, make that 10!"
"Where the hell did they get 10 Dreadnaughts?"
"I don't know, but the techs replaced our railgun with the autocannon, during the refit. And they also took the Marine Gunner gauss cannon too!"
"Shit... Missile pods are almost depleted. And we only have incinedary rounds. No depleted uraniaum slugs. Whats the status for our autocannon?"
"It's charging. Right now its on a cooldown cycle. 5 minutes until their online again."
Theo slapped the dashboard, then signaled back to HQ. "Theta-One to HQ, we've encountered heavy rebel armor. We're counting 10 Dreadnaughts. I repeat: ten Dreadnaughts. We don't have the firepower to take them out. Where's our fire support??"
"HQ to Theta-One, Shortsword support is en-route. ETA 15 minutes. Hold in-"
"Theo! Energy spike! We're in range! Shit, Theo! Get this thing going!" His copilot cut in.
Theo opened full throttle, disengaging the safeties on all weapons. A tone emitted from the panel. Missile lock. Theo clicked the firing trigger. Two Eagle class missiles rocketed out of the wing-mounted pods. They had a lot punch in them, but Theo doubt they would be able to do much damage to a Dreadnaught. It was worth a try. Theo followed up with a stream of rounds from the minigun.
The closest Dreadnaughts swiveled their main turrets towards the Hornets. Theo could almost feel the thrum of the plasma generators charging up the cannons. Come on, come on, you can do it girl, come on, just get us out of here... Theo prayed to his bird.
The minigun rounds splashed all over the Dreadnaught, barely causing any real damage. The missiles streaked in, and impacted directly on the Dreadnaught. Theo could see the hole they blew in, but the unmanned Dreadnaught wasn't critically damaged. The hole hadn't even breached through the entire armor plate. The turret continued to track, the intensity of the plasma glow building. Meanwhile, a secondary bank of weapons on the tank powered up. A smaller turret mounted on top of the main gun swiveled and aimed at the Hornet. 2 railguns, one 3 barreled chaingun, in a triangle.
Another tone emitted from the panel. Lock on. Theo's eyes widened, frozen in fear for a few seconds. Precious secounds.
The tone intensified, rocking Theo out of his stupor. He wrenched the joysticks sideways. The Dreadnaughts compensated, and started firing. The railgun shots went wide, but the Dreadnaughts were rapidly recompensating. Suddenly, the bleeping tone solidified. Theo's eyes flashed. The mighty turrets on the closests Dreadnaughts opened fire together, 4 beams of plasma streaming straight towards the Hornet, which would be vaporized if hit. Time seemed to slow for Theo as he reached forward... and slapped the emergency gas shutoff.
Normally this shutoff was used for emergency gas leak or similar event while the Hornet was on the ground. Right when Theo hit the cut off, he pushed the joysticks forward all the way, sending the Hornet downwards. The electronic systems were still on, and every single one of them was screaming an alarm to him.
The beams coalesced above him, the sheer heat slagging the top plates of the craft.
Theo quickly reset the shutoff valve, and frantically worked the craft's flaps to slow the rate of descent. The ground loomed ever larger in his cockpit window...
After 6 months of writing this one section, I am done. It was mostly b/c i kept on forgetting