The last bastion of hope

[Halo spawn sound]

. . . –

When my sight returned to me I was greeted by rain drops and a sprawling green field. In the distance I could see multiple rock formations that formed massive hills and mountains. Lightning flashed across the sky, briefly lighting the area before darkness reigned again. I turned on my night vision and pulled out my rifle.

'Ok, if I remember correctly, the contract said this humanity only has one safe haven, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.' With an objective to complete I set into this brave new world.

The rain began to lighten up as I approached a cliff side. I took one look down and only saw blackness. I stepped back away from the ledge and that's when then sun came out. I turned off my night vision as the rays illuminated the entire area. My motion tracker began to flair and I quickly readied myself. Suddenly a massive creature with a hammer head front and a dinosaur like structure. Several more strange creatures flew over my head and in the distance I could see a massive metal wall with a U.S flag on it.

'Jackpot' I looked around and found a rock bridge that led across the gap. It didn't take long to reach the outer wall and up close the walls looked even bigger than I originally thought. 'Hopefully this humanity will stand a better chance than mine did.' The sound of growling made me snap to attention and my motion tracker show 5 red dots. Looking around I saw 5 big wolf like creatures, one even howled. I opened fire with the assault rifle which tore apart one of them before I was even halfway through the mag. The others began to charge me. I fired the rest of the mag into the first one that charged before pulling out the magnum and finishing it off. The last 3 tried to surround me, however that didn't last because one of them went down with one shot to the face. I put away the magnum and pulled out my knife and charged the creature. It leaped in an attempt to knock me down, realizing this, I slid under the attack and jumped on its back instead. I jammed the knife into its neck several times, leaving just one left. It attempted to jump me while I got off his friend only for me to throw a right hook which sent it flying. While it was staggered I stabbed its neck, finishing my first encounter.

'Well, I guess the wild life isn't too friendly' I flicked the blood off my knife and reloaded my weapons before another blip came up on the tracker. I instantly turned and had my weapon trained on the new contact.

"Whoa! Easy there, I'm not your enemy!" the contact was a woman with dark skin ,white hair, and blue eyes. She wore red and blue armor and carried two rifles. I lowered my weapon when I realized she was human. She began to approach once she realized that I meant her no harm.

"Nice work taking down those grexes, they were starting to become a problem"

I nodded in affirmation

"My name is Elma, who are you?"

I saluted and responded "Lieutenant SPARTAN B-312, Noble Six. Call me Lieutenant, SPARTAN, or Six." She looked slightly confused.

"SPARTAN? Are you a type of soldier?"

"Yes ma'am" she nodded and smiled

"Good, we could use more soldiers. I was out looking for survivors from the crash but it looks like you found us. Come on, let's get inside the city."

I followed behind Elma as she led us to an elevator. I holstered my Assault Rifle as the elevator made its way up.

"I know you just got here but I have to ask, how'd you get out of your pod? Usually they have to be opened from the outside." Elma asked and I responded with a lie.

"My pod was damaged to the point where I could get myself out" she looked suspicious at first but then she seemed to buy it.

"Well it's good that you didn't die in that pod, most people weren't so lucky" she said with some defeat in her tone. The elevator reached its destination and we exited. I followed behind as she approached a massive balcony. It was only then that I realized that we could see the entire city. I was surprised to see that it wasn't just a military base but an actual city. In the distance I could see houses and a park as well as an area with a massive tower displaying percentage numbers. I could also see what looked like a hanger and mechs flying in and out of it. Elma seemed to lose herself in the sight before turning back to me.

"We named it after the city it was designed from, this is New Los Angeles. It's not much at the moment but it's our last bastion of hope, welcome home Six." She said with a bit if a sad smile. I nodded before turning my attention to the Tower I saw earlier as the numbers had been replaced by a broadcast of a man who looked to be in his early 40's and was addressing the city.

"Attention citizens of New LA, this is your director general Maurice Chausson I'm pleased to announce that our people of BLADE have been able to locate 10 more white whale crew members. They will be integrated into society and-" I tuned out the rest of the speech because I could tell right away that he was lying. I had to read people who were far better liars so catching his lie was easy.

"Director general? Since when?" Elma asked no one in particular

"Since 2 days ago ma'am" a woman responded. We turned to see two soldiers approaching us, one was a blonde woman and the other was a brown haired man. They both looked like the same height but I towered over all of them.

"Irina, Gwin" Elma acknowledged both as they saluted her.

"Colonel" Irina said which caused me to salute Elma as well.

"At ease, all of you" I dropped the salute and turned my attention back to Irina and Gwin as Elma began to introduce us. "Six, this is Irina Akulov and Gwin Evans . We used to be part of a skeleton crew back on earth. Irina is lieutenant like you and Gwin is one of our newer members"

"With all do respect ma'am, why do you call him Six?" Irina asked

"He said that he's lieutenant SPARTAN B-312, Noble Six, he told me to call him lieutenant, SPARTAN, or Six. I chose Six" Elma responded. Irina looked skeptical and Gwin just looked confused.

"Is that your code name?" Gwin asked to which I simply nodded. Not even Noble Team ever learned my real name. "Well you can call me Mr Evans or just Gwin"

"You can call me Irina, lieutenant" she saluted which I returned. She then turned to Elma "Good work out there Colonel, I'm assuming the lieutenant is one of the survivors."

"The survivor and I didn't actually find him, he found us." The colonel responded

"What about 10 other survivors?" Gwin asked oblivious to the lie that was broadcast.

"Pfft, please, the new director general would never let the truth get in the way of a good speech." Irina said before turning back to Elma "We better get back to work now, colonel" she gave one last salute before both her and Gwin walked away. Elma chuckled lightly.

"I'd tell them that the ranks and ma'am's aren't necessary if I thought they'd listen." She said

"It's a sign of respect ma'am, that's all" I said

"Irina told me the same thing. Come, lets get you to the administrative district, you need to be registered into the system before you can do anything." I nodded and followed her to another elevator which led us down into the city streets. As we walked the sky began to go dark, signaling the end of the day here on this foreign planet

AN: Lets me know if I misspelled some of the names, I'm going off memory here. I'm heading into senior year so i had to cut this chapter short.