"ScreeeeeeEEEEEEEAH!"

"Contacts, contacts! Marc, the entrance!"

"On it!"

"Human, Knights to your right!"

"Where the hell did-"

"Lancer! Get to cover!"

"Die now, false reclaimers!"

"Armigers above us."

"We're being overrun! We need to - ngh."

"JOHN!"


Halo: Isolation
Chapter Two

Four minutes earlier

An orange bolt of hardlight flashes past the Spartans, in between them. John and Marc look at each other and raise their weapons in unison. They study the metallic surroundings as hostiles emerge from hiding. "Contacts! Contacts!" A222 calls out, opening fire. The gunfire is partially muffled by the ominous shriek of a Promethean Crawler.

"Marc, the entrance!" John's yell turns Marc on his heels. More of the hyena-like constructs gallop through the doorway on the far side of the room, spitting hardlight rounds and screaming. He raises his Hydra. "On it!" he yells, and sprints at them. A few rounds bounce off his shield. He returns fire with the grenade launcher, sending bits of hot metal and fluorescent orange scattering across the floor.

A Crawler pounces at John, and meets the stock of his rifle. He fires a few quick rounds into the squirming machine and focuses on more incoming Crawlers. Behind him, the Promethean stands still and relaxed. His light rifle is raised, and he fires every second, blowing off limbs and heads with a calm, practiced rhythm. Beyond the Cryptum, lights flash and metallic thuds accompany them. The Seneschal's voice sounds in John's head.

'Human, Knights to your right!"

Marc tackles a Crawler. The drone screeches and snaps at his face, spraying orange fluid on the lens. He grimaces, then buries his fist in its mouth, punching through layers of metal and liquid. The Crawler falls to pieces. Marc stands and sprints to the terminal beside the doors. Outside, dozens of Crawlers run en masse for the opening, filling the air with hardlight. He tucks his head in and begins randomly tapping sigils and runes. The terminal keeps beeping and turning red, refusing to cooperate. Finally, Marc huffs and puts his fist through the terminal. Sparks wash across his shield, and the doors start to close. He pries a boltshot from a dead Crawler and returns fire at the Crawlers, who have redoubled their pace. One tries lunging, and is rewarded with a haymaker and a stomp on the abdomen. the doors slide shut.

Marc turns and pauses. A symbol is glowing above the terminal. It is flickering in and out of existence. But, it is discernable. Familiar, even... Marc's eyes widen. "How the Hell did-"

"Lancer! Get to cover!" Marc snaps out of his state of shock and faces the other end of the room. Promethean Knights and Crawlers are rushing the Seneschal and John. The former is brandishing a glowing hardlight blade and ripping through a host of Crawlers. John is tucked behind a barrier, firing into a charging Knight. A Crawler leaps over the barrier in an attempt to ambush the Spartan. Drawing his combat knife, John grabs the Crawler by the rear, spins it, and drives the blade into the beast's head. Behind it all, an orange oculus focuses on Marc, staring intently and-

The binary round almost takes Marc's head off. He swears and rolls into a trench running along the walkway. Risking a peek over the lip of the ditch, he sees the Lancer has focused its attention on Heritage. It and the Seneschal charge each other with murderous intent. Their blades clash in a bright flash of orange and blue. He stands and sprints for the battle.

A Battlewagon steps over John's cover, slashing at him. He rolls away and empties the last of his ammo into it. The bullets sputter off the shields, and it warbles something in what might have been language. John drops the rifle and reaches for his sidearm, too late. The Knight hisses and raises its scattershot.

It jerks suddenly, and a wave of hardlight sears past John's helmet. The Battlewagon's blade arm juts forward and comes free. Marc is holding it. The AI screams at him and swings the scattershot toward him. Marc slaps the gun aside and buries the blade in the Knight's torso. Its yell fades as it burns away. There is a second and tertiary scream as the Lancer dies and an Alpha Crawler sounds the retreat. Marc stands straight and looks at John.

"Cutting it a bit close." The S-III says dryly. The S-IV shrugs as if it wasn't important. "I was running some errands." John bends and picks up the scattershot, and they both look to the Forerunner. He is surveying the myriad of scorch marks and twisted metal littering the length of the hall. "Where did-" Marc begins.

"I do not know," Heritage says. His voice sounds earnest, and his brow is furrowed ever so slightly. More emotion than either have ever seen from the stoic old warrior. "How do we find out?" John asks. Heritage turns and strides to the terminal at the center of the control room. The Cryptum hovers above it. He starts working in his deceptively elegant manner on the control panel. The Cryptum lowers into the abyss, making way for a large holographic projection. A blizzard of symbols cascade before them. The Seneschal speaks.

"The Halo's power is offline. I am siphoning power from the Keep to power this room, the terminal, and a few sensors. We exited Slipspace into a binary star system. Six rock planets, two in the habitable zone, and one gas giant. Approximately four thousand light years from the nearest Covenant colony, forty five hundred from the nearest human world. There is a signal coming from the fourth planet. Forerunner. scanning... interesting." A collage of images slide across the runes, showing mountains and seas, forests and deserts, towns and cities. "Catalog is here. It died eons ago, but its combat skin has maintained a link to ruins across the planet, and has gathered a sizable cache of data." The photos narrow to just the ones showing signs of alien life. "Diverse biosphere. Species ranging from microscopic to near two hundred meters. One sapient species. Near eleven thousand years of civilization. Achieved technology tier six less than a century ago. Well into its first age of industry. Projected to achieve space flight in four centuries, interstellar in five. Species is - oh." Heritage straightens. "Mantle shelter us."

"What? What is it?" Marc and John approach. Heritage taps a glyph. and the collage vanishes. A diagram of the star system appears, with the fourth planet and a smaller dot are highlighted. "The dot is the Halo. Without power, it is hurtling through realspace at twenty five thousand kilometers a second." A line showing the Halo's projected path appears, and the dot travels down the length. "Our path would take us through the barycenter of the two suns. The Halo would be heated and suffer damage, but would survive." Marc and John glance at each other. Marc is the first to speak. "Would?'

"Yes, 'would.' But, there is a complication. The Halo's path takes it across the fourth planet's orbital path." The planet and the Halo continue to move, drawing closer together. "In three day's time, their paths will intersect." The two dots meet, flash and fade. "And the Halo will smash into the planet at twenty five thousand kilometers a second."

The Spartans are silent. "Casualties?" John asks. He already knows the answer, but he doesn't know what else to say. Heritage turns and looks at him. "'The day will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.' A line from a human holy book, and an apt one. The planet, the Halo, the life on both. Everything will be annihilated."

The three are silent for a long time. Finally, Marc breaks the silence. "Well, then. How do we prevent it?" Heritage's armor slides away from his face. Surprisingly, the Forerunner's expression is one of utter incredulity. More emotion than Marc thought possible. "A better question would be: 'how can three warriors accomplish such a task?' There is no possibility. The task is monumental, more than a hundred could accomplish in such a small frame of time, let alone three." Marc looks over at John.

His visor is fixed on the projection. The explosion is stuck on a loop, and the blue flash keeps reflecting off his visor. Despair is obvious in his posture. Marc straightens his shoulders. "You're forgetting that one human saved the galaxy at least twice in three months. Both times, Halos were involved. Never underestimate a Spartan. Let alone two." John perks up a bit and glances at him. His look could be one of admiration, or disbelief.

Visors are hard to read.

"He's right," John says. "If nothing else, we aren't going to just lie down and let another planet be wiped out. We will save it or die trying." Heritage looks over the two humans. His expression slowly fades from shock to admiration. "Humans. Easily the bravest species in the Librarian's myriad. Foolhardy, but brave. Very well."

He turns to the display. A scale display of the Halo appears, floating horizontally over the Cryptum like its artistic namesake. Blips appear across the surface. "These are our objectives. There are six primary objectives, and two secondary objectives. These aren't key to averting disaster, but will make it markedly less difficult." "Then we hit them," Marc says. Heritage nods. "Very well. The two secondary objectives are the centripetal generators and the teleportation grid. The former maintains the ring's gravity. the latter allows faster traversing of the ring. A two twenty two, you will take the generator. Bedragare, the grid."

"The primary objectives are the three power cores and the three drive engines. With these online, the Halo can be moved into Slipspace and will pass through the planet without causing lasting damage to neither ring nor planet. My first objective will be a core, to feed power to your two objectives. From there, we each take a core and a drive."

Heritage stands back. "If you have questions, now is the time." John is the first to speak. "Is there a backup plan we can fall on if this doesn't work?" Heritage shakes his head somberly. "I might be able to unhook the Cryptum and evacuate us. But this is the one way the planet can be saved." John makes a small nod. "What resistance can we expect?" Marc asks. "If our encounter moments ago is indicative? Armigers, Knights, possibly Sentinels. All deadly. Tread with caution."

Heritage once again approaches the terminal. "The Cryptum can teleport us to our objectives. But until the Halo's grid is online, we-" A hard light round sears past his head. The three whirl around as a voice calls out. "Die now, false Reclaimers!"

Heritage looks up as his helmet slides back across his face. "Armigers above us." As he speaks, bipedal machines drop from the darkness above, landing loudly. They are slimmer and more humanoid than Knights. Promethean soldiers. They stand and draw weapons, but not before the three open fire. The Spartans dive for cover, and Heritage projects a hardlight shield just as the soldiers return fire.

The three fight hard, but so do the soldiers. Every one that they kill is replaced by two more, it seems. They continue to stream from the dark or simply teleport into existence. It isn't long before Marc's boltshot clicks empty. "I'm out!" John hears this, and slides the scattershot across the floor to Marc. He draws his magnum as Marc catches the gun. "We're being overrun! We need to-" John's cover explodes, pelting Heritage and Marc with bits of metal. A soldier carrying a Z-390 yells in victory.

"JOHN!" Marc bolts from cover. Rounds splash off his shields, dropping them at an alarming rate. He doesn't care. He slides and reaches John. The S-III's armor is smoking and crackling. His vitals are going all over the place, but stabilizing as Marc watches. He's Stunned. He positions himself between John and the soldiers, shielding him. "Get us out of here!"

On the far side of the hall, the doors explode inward. Something passes through the smouldering threshold. Something obscured by the smoke. Something big. It bellows in a metallic voice, dripping with pure rage and hate. It raises an almost-ridiculously oversized incineration cannon. And fires.

The three disappear in a white flash once more. A hair second before the area they were standing on is annihilated. The construct roars again, its anger and futility rippling outward and forcing the soldiers to their knees.

Its screams are lost in the great expanse of the Halo.

To be continued in Halo: Isolation, Chapter Three.

(Co-written by Marc Bedragare and John-A222.)