If you're reading this, I just want to thank you for sticking through that long intro. Sorry about that, but there's a lot that has to happen in the Fallout universe to give the wastelanders a fighting chance. Well, here's the story of how the Covenant fleet ended up in orbit around the wrong Earth. And, for the record, Long Night of Solace was not destroyed by Noble Team in the Battle of Reach. The slipspace drive failed to activate when Jorge hit the button. *spoiler alert*
Covenant Supercruiser Long Night of Solace: Bridge
T-0:07
"Arbiter, slip-space coordinates are set for Earth."
"Very well, Shipmaster; engage slip-space drive."
"Engaging... Arbiter!" Alarms started sounding across the bridge.
"What is it Shipmaster?"
"I don't know sir, but something seems to be wrong with the slip-space drive!"
"Shipmaster! Arbiter!" called an Uggnoy from his post.
"What?!" they both answered at the same time.
"Intruders detected! Moving fast from engineering!"
"My gods…" whispered Shipmaster Jhalnee.
One of the Uggnoy jumped out of his chair and started running around in circles. "We're all gonna' die!" he shouted.
"Back to your post!" ordered Arbiter Vadumee. "Helm, abandon the jump!"
"Too late sir! We're committed!" shouted the Uggnoy.
"Escape pods off-line, sirs!"
"Slip-space portal opening… what in the name of…"
Instead of its usual friendly white circle, the portal opening was a sickly purple, crackling with electricity, and pulling the Duty Bound and the rest of the Covenant fleet into its gaping maw.
"Forerunners protect us…" whispered every soul in the doomed fleet.
UNSC Feathersoft: Bridge
T-5:39
"Alright Maverick Team, lock and load."
Maverick… I'll never get used to that. Nobel Six (No, Maverick Six), known to his friends as Jerome and his enemies as (roughly translated) Black Demon, checked his weapons again, a habit he had developed early on Reach. "Never hurts, always helps" he would say whenever anyone would tell him that he was paranoid. He pulled out the clip of his MA37, checked to make sure that there were 32 rounds inside, and slammed it back in.
He looked over at the green-armored Spartan-II sitting next to him. Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 was a picture of calm and control. If the stories were true, and he suspected they were, then that never, ever changed.
"You okay, Jerome?" He looked back at the silver and red Spartan-IV behind him, designation Maverick One.
"Never better, Cass. I'm always a little antsy before I get to kill covies."
"Good luck with that with the Chief around," joked Zurich, the heavy-weapons specialist, in his deep, Russian-accented voice. Why are all heavy-weapons guys Russian? This got a chuckle out of the famous soldier.
"I'll try to leave a few for you guys. No promises, though."
This got a laugh out of everybody. "Twenty seconds to contact," the pilot announced.
"Let's release the panic," said Torres. With a drumming intro, one of his favorite alt-metal songs started playing over their comms.
I don't mean to, to alarm you,
Can't you see that it overtakes you
"Docking procedure complete"
You're declining, disintegrating,
"Move! Move! Move!"
You're gonna' lose it all,
There's no escaping
As the ancient guitar riffed its battle hymn, Jerome leapt out of the air-lock. He locked sights on his first target, a squad of five grunts, and mowed them down. Then the Chief was beside him, concentrating his fire on a brute while Jerome went rifle-to-rifle with an elite. Jerome swung the butt of his rifle up and caught the beast under its mandibles, but it recovered enough to throw a punch. Jerome blocked it with his fore-arm, letting the MJOLNIR Mark-V armor absorb the impact while taking the opportunity to drop his rifle and pull out his knife. He quickly stabbed the elite in the chest, draining its shield and hitting one of its two hearts. The monster staggered back a little, its discolored blood spurting all over the ground, but it roared defiantly and fired a quick burst at Jerome with its plasma rifle. His training kicked in and he dodged the blasts, rolling out of the way and over his own rifle, which he picked up. He finished off the elite, taking its semi-rare plasma rifle as a trophy.
"Jerome! Quit playing around and let's get moving!" he turned around to see Kevin, the orange-clad sniper of Maverick team out of the air-lock and motioning him down the hall. They sprinted through the cruiser, following the trail of bodies left by the others and taking out the occasional grunt that happened to be passing through. They heard the sound of gunfire and increased their speed. Jerome grabbed a couple of plasma grenades along the way.
Jerome and Kevin rounded the corner and found Maverick Team trying to gun their way through a large hanger. As they watched, a Banshee rose up, trying to get a firing angle on them, but then stopped half-way up. Jerome looked to his right to see Kevin aiming his DMR at it. "Did you just shoot the pilot without hitting the Banshee?"
"You wanna' drive?"
"Oh, hell yeah."
Jerome activated his Jet Pack and flew over to the Banshee. He opened the canopy and pulled out the late pilot. It was strange how humans could just instinctively operate any Covenant-made vehicles, but he put the thought away. Taking the alien controls, he maneuvered the fighter to the other side of the hanger, aimed, and fired at the Covenant forces, first raking the plasma blasts over the helpless ground forces then turning his cannons on the Banshees and Seraphs on the ground, putting them permanently out of commission.
He armed one of the plasma grenades that he had picked up and stuck it to the seat as he jumped out, cushioning his fall with his legs. The explosive was timed to go off the second his legs hit the ground.
"'Bout time you got here," remarked Torres.
"Well, you know me. Always taking the scenic route."
"Cortana says the slip-space drive is just down the next hallway. Let's go."
"You heard the Chiefsicle, let's move!" said Cass.
"I'll just pretend I didn't hear that."
They set off at a full sprint. "Hey Chief, why isn't there an alarm going off?" asked Kevin.
"Cortana shut down their in-house communications, and we didn't exactly leave anyone alive to tell the tale."
"I noticed that," said Jerome.
Torres opened the door to the slip-space drive main control room. Jerome noticed four grunts at the controls with their backs to the door, one very bored-looking brute, and a lot of noise coming from his gun.
Then he noticed a lot of blood, organs, and body parts on the controls, one very dead-looking brute, and some smoke curling up from the end of his gun.
"That was easy," said Cass.
Covenant Supercruiser Long Night of Solace: Bridge
T-0:07
"Arbiter, slip-space coordinates are set for Earth."
"Very well, Shipmaster; engage slip-space drive."
"Engaging... Arbiter!" Alarms started sounding across the bridge.
"What is it Shipmaster?"
"I don't know sir, but something seems to be wrong with the slip-space drive!"
"Shipmaster! Arbiter!" called an Uggnoy from his post.
"What?!" they both answered at the same time.
"Intruders detected! Moving fast from engineering!"
"My gods…" whispered Shipmaster Jhalnee.
One of the Uggnoy jumped out of his chair and started running around in circles. "We're all gonna' die!" he shouted.
"Back to your post!" ordered Arbiter Vadumee. "Helm, abandon the jump!"
"Too late sir! We're committed!" shouted the Uggnoy.
"Escape pods off-line, sirs!"
"Slip-space portal opening… what in the name of…"
Instead of its usual friendly white circle, the portal opening was a sickly purple, crackling with electricity, and pulling the Duty Bound and the rest of the Covenant fleet into its gaping maw.
"Forerunners protect us…" whispered every soul in the doomed fleet.
Except, of course, for the humans.
Well, I got impatient waiting for ideas so I went ahead and wrote the next chapter. Seriously, though, I can't keep doing this. I need input from people to make this story as good as you want it to be. So, if you have ideas, please message them to me. Like I said before, 100 follows equals a really, really special chapter. Also, how did you like the action scenes? They're actually some of the first action scenes that I've ever written, so I'm looking for some input. Are they too fast, too slow, or just right? For all you Master Chief fans out there, did I get his character right? And was my depiction of the Covenant forces accurate or nerfed?
I'll be adding the Fallout universe next chapter. That's when I'm really going to need ideas.
PS: If you're looking for that song, that was Release the Panic by Red.
Okay, so it's two days after I last updated this and I can officially say that I am wowed by the number of people reading this. My "viewed" numbers jumped about 60% in two days, so thanks to everybody who read it. In case you're still wondering about how I want the ideas to come in, it's send-and-forget. You don't need to be a regular submitter, I'm just looking for input. If you had a thought while reading this, send it over. The plot is supposed to be mostly YOUR story, not mine.
So, it's the same day that I posted Ch. 4 and got my first review, and I can honestly say that this is my most successful story ever. Thank you for reading this, but I'm sad to say that this will be the last Halo Chapter until the two worlds meet. As of right now, I can pretty accurately say that there will be at least three chapters of Fallout before they meet, and I just wanted to mention that your ideas are really, really needed as to how these worlds come together and which characters should make the introductions and if they should meet over bullets or a beer.