Halo, and everything in it, belongs to Microsoft. Sabre team and all it's members however, belong to me.
Author's Note
This story is mostly concerned with a classified team of Spartan III's, who are cheaper, and higher in numbers than their Spartan II counterparts, though individually are less effective.
Also, this story contains a number of flashbacks from the Spartan III's so I thought it would be important for a timeline of the Spartan III project's actions would make it easier to understand what is going on.
Dec. 27th 2531- Alpha Company is sent to Onyx to begin their training.
Nov. 2536- All three hundred Spartans of Alpha Company survive augmentations and assume active duty.
July 2537- A number of Spartan III's are pulled out of Alpha company by Franklin Mendez to serve in special operations teams and to avoid upcoming Operation PROMETHEUS.
July 2537- Formation of Beta Company authorized.
July 27th 2537- Operation PROMETHEUS begins, the objective is to destroy as many Covenant reactors as possible on the asteroid K7-49, a Covenant shipyard.
July 29th 2537- Seven reactors have been destroyed, a weak attack force has been assembled by the Covenant.
August 1st 2537- Covenant retaliates with a massive strike force, first Spartan casualties occur. Twenty more reactors destroyed by this point.
August 2nd 2537- Covenant return with even more reinforcements, and massacre all remaining survivors. By this time enough reactors have been disabled to cool the asteroid, making the asteroid useless as a shipyard. Operation PROMETHEUS is a success, despite losing all Alpha company Spartans except those pulled out directly before the operation.
2537- The three hundred Spartans of Beta company begin training.
2542- Beta company Spartans survive augmentations and assume active duty.
2542- Franklin Mendez again pulls out Spartans from Beta company to serve in special operations units and to avoid upcoming Operation TORPEDO.
2545- Similar to Operation Prometheus, TORPEDO is successful, though this time two Spartans survive the operation, Tom and Lucy.
2547- With the help of Tom and Lucy, training for Gamma company begins.
2552- All three hundred thirty Spartans of Gamma company survive the augmentation, and are sent to active duty, except for fifteen of them, who remain on planet Onyx to compete for top honors.
The date is January 27th 2576. Twenty-four years since the end of the Great War. My name is **** ****. I am ** years old. I have composed this as a final monument to the actions of Sabre team during the Great War.
Chapter 1
January 2543
Jacob looked through the scope of his Designated Marksman Rifle and surveyed the recent battlefield. Soldiers lie dead on the muddy hillside. His soldiers. Maybe if he had gotten their sooner. Maybe if he hadn't…. "No", he told himself. He couldn't think like that. The Commander turned to the Spartan sitting next to him on a large chunk of destroyed concrete. "Hey Zach". The Spartan made no acknowledgement he had heard his friend. "Zach." Still no response. "Zachary!" Slowly, the younger Spartan looked up at his Commanding Officer. "What?" he said flatly. Jacob replied "I'll get things situated with the platoon leader, find the rest of the team".
Without a word Zachary stood up, grabbed his nearby Assault Rifle, and started a slow jog down the hillside.
Jacob entered the building that had served as the command center during the assault. "So much for a command center" he thought grimly. It was a large concrete house with two floors at the top of the hillside facing down, North. The roof had collapsed and the East wall was completely gone. The walls and windows were riddled with plasma burns. As he entered, he realized that at some point, it had also become the building for the wounded. Stretchers and temporary beds had been lined up within the house.
Looking at the Marines around him, Jacob felt a sudden emptiness. So few wounded… The memory of his training long ago flooded to him "The Covenant do not take prisoners" his former mentor had said "but that won't matter, Spartans do not get captured". Now it mattered. Now more than ever.
But at least his team was-…. His face grew pale under his visor and no one could see the horrible expression on his face. The last time he had seen Sim….
He felt pain, agonizing pain in his leg. That was a good sign. Pain meant he was still alive. "Name. What is my name?". Memories poured into him. "Simeral A241. Spartan III Alpha Company." They came faster now, so fast he could barely comprehend. His name. His friends. His home. All came flooding back to him in an instant. "Ahhhrgh!" The pain was in his head now, then his face, his arm, his leg. His leg. He winced. The last thing he remembered was…. the mortar. More pain. His leg was his focus now. Simeral tried to look down and realized he couldn't.
Zachary continued his jog until he reached the small outcropping that had been the sniper post. He tried to register what he saw. "Fred!" His slow, nonchalant manner immediately faded and was replaced by fear and shock. He saw Frederick, lying face up without his helmet, his face covered in blood…
Zach quickly knelt down and his training kicked in. He was alive, barely. The gash across his face stretched from the right corner of his forehead diagonally, down to the bridge of his nose where it had lessened, then it became deep again continuing down his left cheek, past his chin, and finally ending in the crook of his neck, where Zach had guessed to be two and a half millimeters from his jugular vein.
Fred's eyes fluttered open. A large smile came to life. "Got lucky didn't I?" He coughed up blood onto his chest. No, he realized. He hadn't gotten blood on his chest by coughing, he had…. His eyes wandered to the large gaping hole in his side. Fred almost went into shock, almost. Then, remembering his training, managed to keep calm. He registered his surroundings. Zach, his friend. He remembered now. The Elite with the needler, the explosion of the warthog.
Then he passed out. Zach dressed the wound as quickly as the severity of it would allow. Then he carefully picked up his friend, and headed back toward the Command center.
Steven wandered the battlefield at the bottom of the hillside. Pools of blood and bodies had fallen down the slope and gathered here. Human and Covenant. The Sergeant in command had made it the first task of the soldiers in his command to take the wounded to the command center. The second was to separate the bodies of the fallen. The Marines were all digging graves for their fallen comrades, and the bodies of the enemy were now in a large pile at the western edge of the makeshift camp. Steven had his own ideas.
Walking along the Eastern side of the camp, he found the structure that had collapsed from the plasma mortar. To his horror, he found Sim's helmet. Light green, his gold colored visor shattered. Steven doubled over as he saw Sim's left arm sticking out from a piece of debris.
"No!" He thought as he lifted the large slab of concrete from his teammate. He had never seen a Spartan die. He didn't think it was possi- Sim's arm twitched. Hastily, Steven checked Simeral for wounds. He seemed alright, some bruising in his face a few cuts… Steven lurched as he comprehended the severity of Sim's leg wound. It looked like there was more shrapnel than flesh. He called for a corpsman….
"Goddamit son! You're telling my men died here so you could protect one of ONI's freak show projects?" Jacob stared into the eyes of the Colonel before him through his visor, then removing the helmet he spoke "Yes sir, it was a Class four directive from the Chairman of the committee, I have specific orders here sir." handing him the papers. Colonel Stanfield seized the papers, and after a quick glance he looked upon the Spartan with disgust. "Well then I suggest you complete your business and get the hell out of my sight!" "Right away sir!".
Jacob turned to walk out when an approaching transport warthog stopped, and a large Spartan stepped out of the passenger seat, and began loading someone from the back. "Steven!" he called, relieved "Have you seen-" he stopped dead as Steven unloaded Sim out of warthog. He gaped. "Oh god, what happened?".
When Fred awoke he found his pain had lessened. His first thought he said aloud "Alison!" "It's okay mate, she's salvaging equipment in the lab, the battle's over". Relief washed over him as he turned to his comrade. Man, Zach could calm you down if he wanted to. "Sim?" he asked. "Over here!" came a grunt as the Spartan floated over to him. Where are we? "Off planet, in the medbay of the cruiser" offered Zach "Alice and Jake are still groundside doing cleanup work". "Are they-" Sim cut him off "The Covenant's been wiped from this system, for now anyways… They'll be fine". "Good, I was worried about them". Even though Sim knew that the majority of his concern had been with only one of their squad mates.