In case you were wondering, this is between Halo and Halo 2; after the first Halo ring is discovered.
September 21, 2552
P5X-775, 14:52 Lima
Major Evan Lorne was in a sticky situation. The team holding the gate was under heavy fire, the Covenant were pounding on his doorstep, and Zelenka was frantically trying to extract data from the Covenant console. He squeezed off a three-round burst from his BR355 rifle, killing or at least severely wounding the Elite. The BR355 is the SGC version of the standard BR55 rifle, featuring a red dot sight instead of a scope, a somewhat shorter barrel, and true semi-burst-auto selective fire. It is also lighter and has only a 30-round magazine. Very little of this mattered to Lorne at the moment. He fired another burst, then ducked behind a crate to reload as a plasma shot grazed his shield.
"Done!" shouted Zelenka, packing away his tablet.
"Move! Get to the gate!" yelled Lorne. He wondered how important the data really was as he smashed his rifle into an injured Jackal. The air was practically filled with bullets and plasma fire now. One of his team fell, and Lorne dragged her back up and pulled her along, ignoring the needler fire peppering his shields. Those things were nasty. Sharp, flesh seeking exploding crystals. She was heavy, Lorne noted. She's the FNG. How could I just have noticed that? There was a faint hum as the FNG's shields went back up. She was firing back, but clearly hurt badly. The bolt of the rifle locked open, the magazine empty. Unable to reload with one free hand, Major Lorne dropped the gun and picked up a plasma rifle.
Gunnery Sergeant Williams had problems of her own. What seemed like a thousand Grunts, Jackals, and Elites seemed to be storming the gate. She had an SGC-issue M307 SMG, which was empty. It was fairly useless anyway. More useful than the normal kind, at least, having a longer barrel and decent reflex sights, but it still fired the same unreliable ammunition at about the same speed. The SGC was phasing it out, but it was still the primary weapon for most troops. Williams also carried an M323 hopper-fed SAW, which was heavy and unreliable, but at least it could take down Covenant with some ease. Williams had emptied her SAW a minute ago. The Covenant just kept coming.
She needed a gun. There was a dead Sangheili by the DHD, which she had to get to somehow anyway. But with a constant stream of plasma weapons fire, it would be almost impossible to get there without being shot. Well, time to do something crazy. I hope these shields work.
"Cover me!" she practically shouted over the radio, darting from behind cover and dashing toward the DHD. Predictably, plasma bolts and needler needles hit her from every direction. The sergeant cringed as her shields dropped under the constant enemy fire and needler crystals peppered her armor. An annoying alarm went off, telling her that her shields were down. Williams almost smiled. She could feel the impacts. Only adrenaline kept her going as she grabbed the Elite's rifle and sword and dived behind the DHD.
Open spaces are a curse and a blessing to any soldier. With the amount of Covenant swarming around, it was more of a curse for Major Lorne and his team. Worst of all, he couldn't move very fast with the FNG. "Leave... me," she groaned weakly. Lorne noticed she had dropped her pistol and was more limp than before.
"NO! We'll make it, just keep moving," Lorne's words fell upon deaf ears. The FNG had falled unconcious. He picked her limp body up and started carrying her, dropping his plasma rifle in the process. They were almost at the Stargate, which was good, because his shield was failing under the continuous streams of fire. He rougly placed her down where Williams had been taking cover under a minute before. "Dial the gate!" he yelled over the radio.
Sergeant Williams was having trouble breathing now. It felt as if she was lying face-down in a field composed entirely of nails. Just a little bit longer, she told herself. Forcing back the pain for a moment, Williams leaned over the DHD, firing the plasma rifle randomly toward the Covenant aggressors, not knowing or caring if she got any hits. With her other hand, she dialed Earth on the DHD, collapsing behind the device immediately after finishing the sequence. She gasped for breath, hearing the gate activate, faint voices, weapons from both sides. The badly injured sergeant would vaguely remember being forcefully pulled along the ground.
September 21, 2552
Earth SGC, 12:31 Lima
"Unscheduled offworld activation!" yelled Walter from his customary position at the control console.
"Security teams to the gateroom. Close the iris," ordered General O'Neill. He was having a good day, but it seemed that was about to change.
"Receiving IDC. It's SG-4, Lorne's team, sir. Wait- I'm receiving a radio message."
"...under heavy fire...*rifle fire*have wounded...open...*explosion*MOVE..."
"Open the iris, but get ready to close it. All defence teams on standby. Close the blast door." O'Neill picked up a different handset. "Medical teams to the gateroom!"
On the other side of the blast door, security teams cocked their rifles and the mounted miniguns were spun up. Things were tense as the iris opened and Major Lorne's team poured through. One hapless Elite had managed to get through. He was literally cut in half, what passed for blood spraying all over the closing iris.
Before the iris had completely closed, Dr. Janet Frasier and her team of medics had arrived in the gateroom. Quickly she assesed the situation. Two of the team were badly wounded. One had severe plasma burns to one leg, the armor completely melted away. The other one didn't look as bad, but she had obviously taken a lot of hits. Both casualties were lifted carefully onto stretchers and carried away to the infirmary.
"Major Lorne, I want a full debriefing at oh-14-hundred hours. Get some food and check on Williams and Jenkins first."
September 21, 2552
Earth SGC, 14:00 Lima
General O'Neill hated most debriefings. Usually, it consisted of scientists babbling on and on about something that would benefit humanity somehow, with all the soldiers bobbing their heads and obviously not knowing what the hell it meant. Some of the debriefings, like the current one, were interesting.
Major Lorne and his team, minus Sergeant Williams and Private Jenkins, were in the room along with Dr. Frasier.
"First things first. How are Jenkins and Williams doing?" O'Neill asked. They were, after all, his people, and he was responsible for all of them.
"Well, Private Jenkins took a pretty bad hit to the lower leg, probably from a plasma pistol. It burned right through the armor. Lots of severe tissue and even bone damage. Five years ago, I would have had to amputate. With the advances we've made, I've managed to save her leg. It's still going to be a long and painful healing process, though.
"Williams' injuries were less severe than I was afraid. Plenty of minor burns to the body, nothing major. I think she passed out from shock more than anything. She may have had a minor concussion as well. Both of my patients will live, but Williams will be out of it for a few days to a week, Jenkins probably over a month."
"Thank you. Major Lorne, what the hell happened?"
"Well, sir, it started off as a routine recon. Standard Earth-like world, plenty of humans- former slaves of the Covenant. They showed us the old Covenant outpost. Zelenka thought he could get some useful data out of it.
"Either we picked a bad time to show up, or we activated something. Either way, before we knew it the Covenant were on top of us. Some of us protected Zelenka as he finished downloading his precious files, and some of us held the gate.
"Just after Zelenka finished, Jenkins went down. I carried her back to the gate. Williams dialed, and we went through as fast as we could. I guess she was hit too, because someone had to drag her back through the gate."
"Zelenka, I hope that data was important. You almost got one of my teams killed." O'Neill really hoped the data was important. He didn't want to strangle Zelenka. Well, maybe a little.
Dr. Radek Zelenka took a deep breath. "Actually, it may be even better than I have hoped. As you know, we've recovered various Covenant data modules, recorders, even downloaded data directly. Most of it is encrypted and useless to us.
"However, if I am right, part of what I recovered from the outpost is the key to decrypting the data. This could be immensely useful to us."
"How useful?" asked O'Neill. He was kind of curious now.
"Well, we don't know. Locked inside those databases could be something as useless as what they eat for breakfast-" it was a lame attempt at a joke- "or as useful as say, the gate address to their home planet or anywhere in between."
"All right, dismissed. I want Carter and McKay working on that. You too, Zelenka." Sam and Rodney, maybe not such a good idea, thought General O'Neill as he left the briefing room.
I think this chapter was better than the last. Anyone who got the Mass Effect reference, good job.
Background Notes:
-Daedalus belongs to the SGC because they developed the technology, paid for it, and crewed it.
-In fact all SGC-SPARTANS have full names and on average higher ranks. It was considered easier by the SGC to fake their identities than to hide them. To most people, Sam is just the brat daughter of a high-ranking general.
-The SGC is its own separate service, albeit a small one. Kind of a "combined forces" thing, but with a different specialty as well.
-Major Lorne is not a SPARTAN, it's just that the SGC has exploited alien technology and the best Earth technology. Meaning standard armor with shields and better protection, modified weapons, some more effective than others, and some neat gadgets too.
This story is actually really hard for me to write, as it's full of contradictory requirements. I have to stay consistent with SGC characters, yet work with a different universe. I have to be accurate to both canons and put in enough details to satisfy fans, but still explain enough to make it accessible to those who only play Halo, only watch Stargate, or neither. Nevertheless, this is still fun to write, more so than most of my half-hearted projects.