Halo: The Battle of Arcadia
For many years, Arcadia was a thriving colony, but in 2531 the Covenant struck, laying waste to the world in search of a Forerunner relic. After finding their prize near a UNSC military site, the Covenant forces unexpectedly departed from the ravaged planet. In the wake of this devastating attack, the planet was thrown into chaos, and its surviving population was in disorder. The Covenant returned in 2549 to wipe out the remaining population and finish the mission that they had started almost two decades earlier.
But their objective would be hampered by a team known as The Shadow Strike Squad.
"We're approaching the drop-zone." said the pilot of the Pelican Drop-Ship Echo-419 over the intercom. As Echo-419 touched down on the ground the deafening hum of its engines died away into the cool night's breeze. "Ok, we're at the al-zee." whispered Carter-A259 into his helmet's microphone as he and the three other Spartans exited the ship. "I copy Captain, but I have to remind you that once I take off, you will have no more support. I repeat, no more support." replied Echo-419's pilot. "I copy." said Carter. The now familiar roar of the Pelican's engines filled the air and quickly faded as the ship flew further and further away.
Carter looked at the three Spartans standing in front of him. "You all know what our mission is. To kick those frickin Covenant's arses off this planet. And you are the best people to help me do it. You know what to do." The other Spartans each nodded. They shook hands with each other, turned around and each walked in different directions.
Warrant Officer Jun-A266, a Spartan who specialises in marksmanship, walked east alongside Lieutenant Commander Kat-B320, an expert cryptanalyst and tactician. While Commander Carter and The Master Chief walked north on the old windy track towards the deserted city of Abaskun.
They weren't exhausted, they never were, but after four long hours of walking Jun and Kat had finally arrived at their destination, Harvest Canyon. Jun scouted around and found a good sniper position high up on the cliff face. As he settled into his hiding spot, he signalled to Kat and she raced down the hill. Jun quietly smiled to himself, he and Kat had been dating for some time and he adored her. He snapped out of his daydream as he heard the first startled cry of a Grunt as Kat shot it in the head with her beloved hand crafted pistol that she had made many years ago. Jun looked into his scope, sighted the head of a Covenant Elite, and pulled the trigger.
Meanwhile The Master Chief and Carter had arrived at the ONI base that housed the super computer AI known as Cortana. She and she alone, knew where the Covenant were hiding the small Covenant Cruiser called Ardent Prayer. This ship had enough explosives on board that if the Covenant were to detonate it, it would destroy all human life left on Arcadia. They both took one look at the hundreds of Covenant troops surrounding the building from behind the broken down Warthog that they sat near and knew that they had a fight on their hands.
They had made it past the Covenant that had littered the canyon. As they walked together up to the elaborate entrance to a hanger bay at the end of Harvest Canyon, they heard a strange throbbing sound coming from the room behind the door. As they walked further into the room, the throbbing stopped and the door that they had come in through slammed shut. From the corners of the room emerged hundreds and hundreds of Grunts, Jackals, Hunters and Elites. As they advanced towards the pair of lone Spartans, Kat and Jun stood back to back, and started shooting.
Jun and Kat were excellent shots, and as their first clips emptied, multiple Covenant fell to the ground, either dead or mortally injured. As the bullets flew all around them, Kat and Jun fired their weapons with deadly accuracy. Jun knew he didn't have enough ammunition. As the last few bullets flew out of his Assault Rifle, he suddenly dropped his gun and charged forward towards the nearest Elite and stabbed it with his Combat Knife. As he bent down to pick up the Elite's Energy Sword, he sensed movement behind him. He quickly swung around and cut clean through the Jackal that had snuck up on him and it's blue blood blinded him for a second as it splashed onto his visor. As he swung back around to check that Kat was ok, he saw the last Hunter left standing take aim and fire. As the Plasma Bullet pierced Kat's chest, he let out a cry of pain. He pulled out his Sniper Rifle and shot the Hunter in the neck. He then raced towards Kat as she fell to the ground, limp and lifeless.
The Covenant troops that had been surrounding the ONI base had been taken out thanks to the exceptional sniper skills of The Master Chief. And Carter and The Chief had entered the control room that housed Cortana. As Carter typed in the password that had kept the Covenant from destroying the AI, a holographic projection appeared of a woman's body. "Ahh, it feels so good to be let out of that tiny control centre," Cortana sighed.
"Cortana…do you know where the Covenant Cruiser Ardent Prayer is located?" asked The Master Chief. "Scanning…The Ardent Prayer is located seventy-four kilometres south-east from this position." she replied. "SHIT!" cursed Carter. "That's where Kat and Jun were heading to find any remaining Marines in the area. If the Ardent Prayer is there, it'll be crawling with Covenant. They don't stand a chance!" "Calm down Commander! If we hurry, we can probably make it back to them in time." Master Chief said as he was trying to calm Carter down. "Negative." said Cortana "It's too far away. The only way we can get there in time is in a Mongoose or Warthog." "Carter?" "What!" "Didn't you use to be an engineer?" asked Master Chief.
"There, I've done it." yelled Carter in triumph. It had only taken him ten minutes but he had finally fixed the broken down Warthog. "Good job Commander." replied Cortana. She had been stored on a hard drive and had been inserted into Chief's armour. "Get in. We're going for a long ride."
Jun ran to where Kat lay motionless on the ground. He tried to find a pulse but couldn't feel any. "NOOO!" He wailed. He clung to her lifeless body but deep down he knew that there was nothing he could do.
As Jun was saying his last goodbyes at the grave he had dug for Kat, he heard the purring of a motor in the distance. He picked up Kat's beloved pistol and slipped it into his pocket. He then turned towards the rapidly approaching Warthog and started trudging in its direction.
"JUN! JUN! Where's Kat?" yelled Carter over the roar of the Warthog's engines. Jun half turned, pointed at the mound of dirt thirty metres away and said nothing more as he climbed into the side seat of the Warthog. The trio drove into the hanger bay that was now littered with the bodies of dead Covenant. They drove past the evidence of the fire-fight into the room which contained the Ardent Prayer. "Holy crap! That's massive!" yelled Jun. As they approached the Cruiser, Cortana suddenly yelled "Stop, I'm getting a message…The Pillar of Autumn is being engaged by a Covenant Super Carrier. If I don't get to the Autumn's control centre the Covenant will surely destroy the ship!" "Well, we now have a new mission. To deliver Cortana and destroy the Super Carrier." sighed Carter.
The Ardent Prayer was empty, aside from the two or three Jackals patrolling the place. It was an amazing sight as the large purple Cruiser exited the hanger bay. And because the ship was equipped with a slip space drive, it had reached the edge of Arcadia's atmosphere within seconds.
As it approached the Pillar of Autumn it was harassed by multiple Covenant Banshees and was forced to manoeuvre into one of the Autumn's multiple hanger bays. As they exited from the ship they were greeted by a squad of Marines and were quickly escorted to the control room. Captain Keyes was waiting for them there. "Master Chief, do you have Cortana?" he asked and to his amazement Master Chief ejected the hard drive from his armour and handed it to the Captain. The Captain quickly turned around and put the disk into the central control mainframe. "Ahh, it feels so good to be home," sighed Cortana as her holographic projection flickered back to life. "Cortana, can you get us away from here?" asked Captain Keyes.
"Negative, the Super Carrier has deployed too many small ships for us to make a quick escape. Our only hope is to destroy it and use our slip space drive to escape. And even then we would probably be pursued by multiple Banshees and Phantoms." replied Cortana. "Well it's our only hope." said Master Chief. "But where would we get enough fire power to do it?" asked Jun. "The Ardent Prayer," said Carter solemnly.
As they pulled nearer to the Super Carrier, they had only just finished making their plan. The plan was to park the Prayer in Hanger Bay 3 and set the timer for two minutes which should give them enough time to make it to Hanger 6 and hijack another Cruiser. 2:00, 1:59, 1:58, beeped the timer as they ran out of the bay and into the labyrinth of corridors and passages. "Something's wrong." whispered Carter. They hadn't seen any Covenant at all since leaving the Prayer and they had expected to have a fight on their hands.
But as they ran through the passage into Hanger Bay 6, they heard hundreds of feet hitting the ground. As the three Spartans turned around, a massive group of Covenant emerged from the roof of the corridor and advanced towards them.
They stood united, fighting for their lives as wave after wave of troops approached them and as the dead bodies piled up around them. They knew that it would soon be over for them. "Get on the ship!" yelled Carter over the deafening sound of the bullets flying around them. "What! No!" replied both Jun and The Master Chief. "That's an order soldiers!" yelled Carter. So the Chief and Jun turned around and ran into the control centre of the ship. As they started the engines and took off from the Hanger Bay, they both looked out the window as the sheer number of Covenant overcame Commander Carter and he silently dropped to the floor.
"Chief! Chief! What happened?" crackled Cortana's voice over the radio. "We made it. But we…we lost Carter…"replied Master Chief. BOOM! The explosion was deafening even from the Pillar of Autumn. As the debris from the once regal Super Carrier flew through space towards the Autumn, The Pillar's slip space drive kicked in and they disappeared into space travelling at the speed of light.
As the ship slowed down, the crew on-board gasped at the massive Halo Ring that they were heading for. "Captain Keyes!" yelled one of the Autumn's tech crew. "Our anti-gravitational shield has failed! We're going to hit Alpha Halo!"
The Grunt was pacing up and down. He was sick and tired of the way the Jackals treated him and he was also sick and tired of pacing up and down endlessly. He looked up at the sky as a loud roar filled the air. "Oy! AHHHH!" he yelled as he ran away from the giant ship plummeting towards the face of the ring.
"Ok, brace for impact!" yelled the pilot of the small Frigate that all of the crew of the Pillar of Autumn were on. The light Frigate had disengaged from the mother ship a matter of seconds before it had crashed. But the Frigate had sustained heavy damage as it had ejected and it was coming towards the ring with incredible speed. BLACKOUT.
The Master Chief opened his eyes. It could have been minutes or hours since the Frigate had crashed but he didn't know as he had been knocked out by the impact. He looked around. The ship was littered with the bodies of dead soldiers. He walked right past them and exited the Frigate. And to his relief he saw a lone ODST soldier standing outside. As he walked closer to him he saw what he was standing next to. A body of a Marine. But it looked different. It had been transformed into a sort of zombie. As the ODST spoke to him the only word The Master Chief heard was "The FLOOD"
The building that he was in gave him the creeps. The building had one room which had six locked doors and one unlocked one. As he sat in the room listening to The Master Chief's plan, he heard a thumping coming from one of the doors. They stood still. Pointing their weapons at the one door. And suddenly it opened.
Out rushed the most horrible creatures you could imagine.
The Master Chief had faced the Flood before and he knew that the Shotgun did great damage to them. So he and the ODST pulled out their shotguns and started shooting.
They had destroyed the first wave of Flood. And the second, third, fourth and fifth. But on the last wave, the ODST was shot dead. And the Flood that had killed it ran up to him and touched him on the forehead. And he started to transform. His head violently flung itself to the side and his spinal cord protruded from his neck. But the Master Chief had seen enough and he took aim and shot the ODST in the chest. Then he turned, and ran.
He had never run this fast for this long. But he finally had made it back to the Frigate. "Ok," he sighed to himself. "If I can fly this thing to the ring's Library. I can activate the Halo Array and destroy the Flood for good." He typed the coordinates into the Frigates computer and piloted it to the Library.
Where he was met with a big surprise.
The Covenant were staging an uprising against the Flood and a massive war was taking place. So The Master Chief crept into the room that held the Index. The key to firing the Halo Array. He put it into his armour's backpack and exited the building.
Now all he had to do was get to Halo's Control Room and fire the Halo Array.
He had made it to the Control Room. But there was one thing standing between him and the keyhole for the Index. A Phantom loaded with Covenant troops was blocking the door. The Master Chief ducked behind a large rock near the Phantom. He snuck a peak over the top and realised that they had not noticed him yet. He pulled out his Sniper Rifle and loaded the last three bullets into it. He then looked back over the rock and stayed stock still until the ships Weapon's Officer's head was right in the middle of his crosshairs. He pulled the trigger.
The Officer silently sunk to the ground and Master Chief then shot both of the door gunners in quick succession. He then put his Sniper Rifle on the ground as he had no more bullets left. He took out his Assault Rifle and threw a grenade into the left side passenger bay. Instantly killing all fifteen passengers. But the sound of the blast had alerted the other Passengers and they exited the ship and started stalking around to find the killer. The Master Chief popped up from behind the rock and started shooting wildly at the Grunts and Jackals.
As the last one fell to the floor dead, The Master Chief walked alone through the blood stained grass and the bodies of the troops into the Control Room. Where he put the index into the keyhole. And everything went black.
NiTrO BUrNeR