This story isnt as long as the previous chapters and is meant to introduce the MJOLNIR Suits and give a History lesson on this AU humanity and UNSC. The next chapter is where the real shooting starts.

And this is the last chapter that will use any significant context from The Fall of Reach, which is property of Halo and 343, which I dont own...and oh shit nearly forgot Star Wars, yup I defiantly dont own that, cause I wouldnt have fucked it up with the prequels.

Enjoy!

November 8th, 2525

Epsilon Erindani System

Valiant Class Battlecruiser

UNSC Everest

Battlefleet X Ray

"Latest update from FLEETCOM sir." One of the younger officers spoke with a hint of a crack in his voice as Admiral Preston James Cole took the holotab out of the young man's hands and nodded.

"Thanks son."

The man nodded and saluted. "Sir."

As the young officer briskly walked off to the side of the expansive bridge of the warship, Preston James Cole scrolled through the list on the data pad, going over the expansive list of the weapons, crew, fighters and ships under his command.

Fifty six warships not including his flagship.

Ten top of the line Marathon Heavy Cruisers. Eight older Halcyon Class Cruisers. Twelve of the fleet's new Midlothian Class Heavy Destroyers. Twenty Paris Class Heavy Frigates. An unprecedented Two Phoenix Class Assault ships which were converted colony ships loaded with a division of Marines apiece and three of the Navy's most sophisticated Prowlers that ONI possessed.

The last ship in his little Armada was just now leaving the space docks that when viewed from the planet Reach were so numerous that they looked like endless Constellations of stars.

An Atlas Class Carrier was a 1,650 meter long mass of fused composite Titanium A battleplating, engines and weapons ports. Carriers were the second largest ships ever built by human hands, second only to the fleet's three new and monstrous 1800 meter long Trafalgar Class "Super" carriers that were nearing completing within the year.

An angular beauty with uncompromising looks the majority of the ship's space was taken over by the Longsword Interceptor launch bays, so many in fact that each UNSC carrier was loaded with nearly 230 of the fighters and left little room for more than a Frigate's offensive weapons systems.

The ship pushed its way out of the Anchor 16 Space dock where it had been undergoing refitting and worked its way to the location of Admiral Cole's fleet in one of the planet Reach's multiple Lagrangian points on the far side of world and its two moons.

"UNSC Musashi is Thirty thousand clicks off of our port side sir. She is clearing Reach's secondary defense grid and Fleet perimeter now." The Everest's XO Emily Giles announced from her post at the fore of the Command center.

Cole looked out at the planet 150,000 kilometers distant on the large port side viewscreen.

Reach.

The fleet was on the side of the planet currently experiencing night time, allowing him to see the endless clusters of lights from cities and towns that covered the surface of the garden world and the line of lights extending up through the atmosphere that was the world's ten orbital elevators.

Located in the Epsilon Erindani star system, Reach was on Earth's metaphorical doorstep at a mere 10.5 lightyears, a trip which with the modern Slipspace drives of the UNSC would only take fourteen hours. Reach was slightly larger than Earth, having a diameter of 15,273 kilometers, compared to the 12,756 kilometers diameter of Earth, but 1.08 Gs was not a big difference.

The world and the three other colonies in the system had been settled in the first wave of expansion outside of the Sol system in 2221, and multiple probes had been sent to the system prior to the development of the Shaw Fujukawa Slipspace drive by the UEG and multiple Nation States before that by means of Nuclear Pulse Propulsion drives. Requiring a small degree of terraforming, the world grew over the centuries into the most powerful and populous of the UEG's and UNSC's colonies with nearly 3.6 Billion people. Reach was the most important headquarters for the United Nations Space Command outside of Earth and the main supplier in the colonies of military and civilian spacecraft outside of Earth and Mars, and the location of the UNSC's largest and most active shipyards outside of Sol. High Command, Fleet Command and the Marine Corps maintained headquarters on Reach, as well as many primary Naval Intelligence bases.

All those valuable resources and people needed defending, and the result was the single largest single permanent defensive fleet and forces in a single system aside from the gargantuan Home Fleet of Earth and Sol which dwarfed everything.

Two hundred and thirty warships, from dozens of the latest heavy Frigates, Destroyers, Halcyon Cruisers and Marathon Heavy Cruisers backed up by several Carrier groups and three of the Everest's own class of Valiant type Battlecruisers. And that was simply the ships, not the rings of anti missile satillites and Surface to orbit Mass Drivers that dotted the world's military bases along with the Marine's Mobile Self Propelled Onager Mass Drivers.

Above Reach sat the recently completed and deadly looming forms of 40 Mark V Semi Mobile Super MAC Orbital Defensive Platforms, Defensive battlestations armed with a massive supersized Magnetic Accelerator Cannon with a length the size of a cruiser, capable of accelerating a 300 ton slug at an astonishing 70,000 kilometers per second to lead to a kinetic energy release of 17.5 Gigatons of TNT per shot. Powered by gigantic underground Fusion Generators that transmitted the energy to the stations, as their much smaller generators on board we only used to power the secondary defensive batteries, Plasma Barriers and life support systems.

They could track and destroy enemy ships at ranges up to a colossal 280,000 kilometers limited only by the speed of which UNSC's X-Band sensors could track a target accurately without significant lag in targeting. To think that there were five time their number in orbit of Earth was a sobering and comforting thought at the same time.

It was a terrifying invention that was the result of nearly a half century of war and insurrections among colonies disgruntled with the UEG's leadership that culminated in multiple systems and three dozen Outer Colonies and a dozen Inner Colonies out rightly seceding from the UNSC and UEG and forming their own military force and fleet out of the traitorous former counterpart of to the UNSC, the CMA, or Colonial Military Authority, calling themselves the United Rebel Front. During a 7 year period of pseudo cold war between the two the UNSC, being faced with the prospect of a real full scale war against an enemy with warships and armies, initiated the largest military expansion in human history. Weapons long having sat on drawing boards due to a lack of an enemy to use them against were finally developed and pressed into service. Defenses over Earth, Mars, Reach and countless other UNSC held worlds which had previously been small and relied usually on surface to orbit systems were upgraded and expanded with rings of defensive satellites and Super MAC ODP Battlestations as the old outmoded ships of the UNSC Fleet were scrapped and replaced with ships sporting MAC guns, huge batteries of the latest anti ship missiles and Railguns, the most advanced point defenses developed, even more powerful Plasma Barriers and thick Titanium A Composite Battleplate. New starfighters like the Longswords replaced the older models and the Marine Corps found themselves equipped with top of the line Powered Battlesuits, small arms, equipment, vehicles and enough of the newest Main Battle Tanks, Mobile Rail gun artillery and drones to give Generals wet dreams.

In 2510 war finally broke out, forever known as the Rebellion War.

The United Rebel Front launched an abortive assault on the Earth of the UNSC and Humanity. Earth.

For four days battles and skirmishes raged in the cold unforgiving vacuum in and around Earth's and Mar's orbits, causing significant casualties on both sides as dozens and dozens of ships from both sides and causing damage to the significant orbital works above Earth, Mars and in the stable orbits of the Lagrangian points. On top of that the entire city of New Dehli was left a smoldering hole. However the then vastly smaller UNSC Home Fleet was victorious and successfully defeated the URF Fleet. Seven years later two of the core worlds of the Rebellion were left a smoldering ruin after years of constant warfare over control of the planets and their respective systems. And entire Outer Colony world was left uninhabitable after Kinetic bombardment and nearly 100 million were left dead, but the UNSC stood victorious.

The Insurrection and terrorist groups were still operating, but after the UNSC and UEG initiated series of reforms many of the Rebellions lost their support, and the UNSC was left with a massive military that was still growing from projects and investments made during the war and with a military that was huge and with no one to fight.

Until now.

"Sir we are ready. All fighters accounted for and our slipspace drives are ready. All fighters and ships are docked and are reading green sir." The Everest's fourth generation smart AI, Frost, whose avatar took the form of that of an amorphous snow flake whose voice was nearly asexual replied as his avatar flashed with lines of code, the result of calculating a FTL jump for the entire fleet.

Cole took one last look at Reach and the lights from endless lines of civilian ships and freighters in their strictly enforced shipping lanes and out to the twinkling small orbs of the other three heavily populated and defended colonies in the system, Tribute , Circumstance and Tantalus, millions of kilometers away.

Cole silently recited the age old Shepard's prayer, derived from a famous quote that slipped from the mouth of American Astronaut Alan Sheppard minutes before he lifted off on his primitive rocket in Florida in the mid 20th century to become the first American in space and the second human to enter the heavens during Mankind's first tenative steps into the stars.

"Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up."

He had a career that was celebrated by the UNSC as the most decorated in modern history and had fought as a captain and commander on various UNSC warships on the frontline from the very beginning of the Insurrection thirty years ago through the hell of the Rebellion War and up until now.

Yet despite all of the medals on his Dress uniform in his cabin he felt as if all of that experience was near worthless against this new and deadly foe, despite the fact here he was, on a Valiant Class Battlecruiser no less, the most powerful ship in the UNSC armed with two Cruiser grade heavy MAC guns and a lighter MAC on its dorsal flank, three dual heavy railguns, a dozen dual railgun turrets and countless Missiles and other armaments along with three dozen Interceptors, leading the single most powerful Battlegroup in UNSC history to launch on an offensive.

Cole steeled himself and cleared his thoughts as he turned to the helm

"Set course for Harvest. Best Speed."

November 8th , 2525 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Damascus Materials Testing Facility, Planet Chi Ceti 4

How far down was the testing facility? John and the other Spartans had been confined to a freight elevator for fifteen minutes, and the entire time it had been rapidly descending into the depths of Chi Ceti 4.

The last place John wanted to be was in another confined space.

The doors finally slid open, and they emerged in what appeared to be a well-lit hangar bay large enough to fit a dozen Longswords comfortably. The far end had an obstacle course set up with walls, trenches, dummy targets, and barbed wire along with simulated outdoors enviroments.

Three technicians and at least a dozen AI figures were busy in the center of the room. John had seen AIs plenty of times, everyone did, yet no more than one at a time. Déjà had once told the Spartans that there were technical reasons why AIs couldn't be in the same place at the same time, but here were many ghostly figures: a mermaid, a samurai warrior, and one made entirely of bright light with comets trailing in her wake.

Dr. Halsey cleared her throat. The technicians turned—the AIs vanished.

John had been so focused on the holograms that he hadn't noticed the forty Plexiglas mannequins set up in rows. On each was a suit of armor, powered armor.

The armor reminded John of the powered battlesuits Marines wore but much larger, clearly designed to fit the Spartan's larger size, and more advanced looking. He stepped closer to one and saw that the suit actually had multiple layers; the outer layer reflected the overhead lights with a faint green-gold iridescence. The clearly thick armor covered the groin, outer thighs, knees, shins, chest, shoulders, and forearms. There was a helmet and an integrated power pack—smaller than standard Marine power suit's hydrogen fuel cells. Two hunches depressed into the back alongside the powerpack that looked like an integrated thruster pack. On the left hand shoulder built into the armor looked like a small built in weapons system, but what it fired he couldn't tell, along with the slight bulge on the armored left forearm. Underneath were intermeshed layers of matte-black metal and a third layer that peeked out in some places that was likely a carbon nano body suit.

"Project MJOLNIR," Dr. Halsey said. She snapped her fingers and an exploded holographic schematic of the armor appeared next to her.

"The armor's shell is a multilayer composite fused Titanium A alloy of remarkable strength. In testing it is five times stronger than armor on the most modern Marine and ODST battlesuits and can withstand numerous rounds from Electro thermal Assault Rifles, bursts of Gauss Rifle rounds, a moderate amount of heavier weapon fire and even resist against a fair amount of anti material rounds. We recently added a refractive coating to disperse incoming energy weapon attacks—to counter our new enemies." She pointed inside the schematic.

John and the Spartans nodded in approval. He was impressed so far.

The bulges on the back of the suit next to the power pack flashed on the hologram.

"Each suit has a built in thruster and booster system, not only allowing for movement and maneuvering in vacuum but also able to be used as a short term jet pack and as an impromptu rapid evasion system on the ground to quickly "boost" and evade enemy fire. They can simply be controlled by the user's active neural implant, thus one must simply activate it with his or her thoughts."

"Each battlesuit also has a gel-filled layer to regulate temperature; this layer can reactively change in density along with standard carbon nano fibers in the under lying suit. Against the skin of the operator, there is a moisture-absorbing cloth suit, and biomonitors that constantly adjust the suit's temperature and fit. There's also an onboard computer that interfaces with your standard-issue neural implant."

Halsey continued as John watched all the more closely now as the hologram switched to show the small mount on the left shoulder of the suit, this hologram showing an armor that was slightly converted to accommodate for a female Spartan.

"This in an on board weapons mount, capable of acting as a grenade launcher and firing 30mm Smart Grenades, Flashbangs, EMP Grenades and even a single M-2MM Arrow 33mm Micro Guided Rocket Propelled Grenade capable of locking on to enemy infantry."

Now that is nice- John began to grin.

She gestured and the schematic collapsed so that it only displayed the outer layers. As the image changed, John glimpsed veinlike microcapillaries, a dense sandwich of optical crystal, a circulating pump, even what looked like a miniature fusion cell in the backpack.

"Due to advances in miniaturization we have finally succeeded in miniaturizing a fusion reactor that can be mounted with your suits, producing 12.4 times the power of a Marine M-51 Battlesuit's Hydrogen Pack. However aside from powering your larger suits, the energy is needed for our next innovation that I admit I am proud of." Halsey spoke with a very rare hint of pride as the strange bulge on the armored left fore arm lit up, this time the hologram showing a small emitter within the "bulge" quickly reveal itself.

"That, Spartans, is a fully functional IN atmosphere personal Plasma Barrier."

That had Johns attention.

How did they scale it down to fit in a suit? I thought the Marine's testing to fit one on a Grizzly Tank had failed several years ago. No less achieving making one work in atmosphere.

"Thanks to advances in the creation of magnetic fields, we can now contain a barrier of cold and hot Plasma within a standard atmosphere with the same effectiveness as in vacuum. As with every other Plasma Barrier it only covers one location at a time, and due to limitations of size there are only emitters on your forearm and back. In fitting it to the MJOLNIR's forearm it can simply be activated and used as a personal shield like a riot shield and due to its placement can be activated and used while the user is handling and aiming a firearm like so." Halsey continued as the video showed a MJOLNIR suit animation in a standard firing position, the location of the emitter allowing the user to have it activated and defending his or her front while comfortably firing a weapon.

"Also we have refined the suit's emitters to scale with the size of the weapon you are firing and is linked to your weapon so that it will allow a small hole in the screen for your fire to pass through. The barrier is linked up to the suit's threat tracker that we also adjusted to seek out energy weapons and electro-magnetic fields like plasma, so it will automatically turn on when it detects incoming fire, although in the case of your forearm emitter it wont do you any good if your arm is to your side leaving your front exposed, so if you are caught in such a predicament you will have to either dodge or bring the emitter and barrier to bare."

The Spartans nodded yet again.

" Be reminded that while it can withstand sustained small to medium arms fire for a short period of time, enough hits or concentrated fire WILL overload the containment field, so it is still much better to avoid taking fire if you can."

John and the Spartans all nodded in unison as Halsey took in a breath to continue.

"Most importantly," Dr. Halsey said, "the armor's inner structure is composed of a new reactive metal liquid crystal. It is amorphous, yet fractally scales and amplifies force. In simplified terms, the armor triples the wearer's strength, and enhances the reaction speed of a normal human by a factor of five."

She waved her hand through the hologram. "There is one problem, however. This system is so reactive, far more so than any previous powered armor system, that our previous tests with unaugmented volunteers ended in—" She searched for right word. "— failure." She nodded to one of the technicians.

A flat video appeared in the air. It showed a Marine officer, a Lieutenant, being fitted with the MJOLNIR armor. "Power is on," someone said from offscreen. "Move your right arm, please."

The soldier's arm blurred forward with incredible speed. The Marine's stoic expression collapsed into shock, surprise, and pain as his arm shattered. He convulsed—shuddered and screamed. As he jerked in pain John could hear the sounds of bones breaking.

The man's own agony-induced spasms were killing him.

Halsey waved the video away. "Normal humans don't have the reaction time or strength required to drive this system," she explained. "You do. Your enhanced musculature and the metal and ceramic layers that have been bonded to your skeleton should be enough to allow you to harness the armor's power. There has been . . . insufficient computer modeling, however. There will be some risk. You'll have to move very slowly and deliberately until you get a feel for the armor and how it works. It cannot be powered down, nor can the response be scaled back. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the Spartans answered.

"Questions?"

John raised his hand. "When do we get to try them, Doctor?"

"Right now," she said. "Volunteers?"

Every Spartan raised a hand.

Dr. Halsey allowed herself a tiny smile. She surveyed them, and finally, she turned to John.

"You've always been lucky, John," she said. "Let's go."

He stepped forward. The technicians fitted him as the others watched and the pieces of the MJOLNIR system were assembled around his body. It was like a giant three-dimensional puzzle as the minutes ticked by.

"Please breathe normally," Dr. Halsey told him, "but otherwise remain absolutely still."

John held himself as motionless as he could. The armor shifted and melded to the contours of his form. It was like a second skin . . . and much lighter than he had thought it would be. It heated, then cooled— then matched the temperature of his body. If he closed his eyes, he wouldn't have known he was encased.

They set the helmet over his head.

Health monitors, motion sensors, suit status indicators pulsed into life. A targeting reticle flickered on the heads-up display along with dozens of icons.

"Everyone move back," Halsey ordered.

The Spartans—from their expressions, they were concerned for him, but still intensely curious—cleared a ring with a radius of three meters around him.

"Listen carefully to me, John," Dr. Halsey said. "I just want you to think, and only think, about moving your arm up to chest level. Stay relaxed."

He willed his arm to move, and his hand and forearm sprang forward to chest level. The slightest motion translated his thought to motion at lightning speed. It had been so fast—if he hadn't been attached to his arm, he might have missed that it had happened at all.

The Spartans gasped.

Sam applauded. Even lightning-fast Kelly seemed impressed.

Dr. Halsey slowly coached John through the basics of walking and gradually built up the speed and complexity of his motions. After fifteen minutes he could walk, run, and jump almost without thinking of the difference between suit motion and normal motion.

"Petty Officer, run through the obstacle course," Dr. Halsey said. "We will proceed to fit the other Spartans. We don't have a great deal of time left."

John snapped a salute without thinking. His hand bounced off his helmet and a dull ache throbbed in his If his bones hadn't been reinforced, he knew they would have been pulverized.

"Carefully, Petty Officer. Very carefully, please."

"Yes, ma'am!"

John focused his mind on motion as he proceeded through the vast indoors obstacle course.

Over the next several minutes He leaped over a four-meter-high wall with ease and distance to spare. He punched at reinforced concrete targets—shattering them. He threw knives, sinking them up to their hafts into target dummies nearly 30 meters away. He ran a 200 meter dash at speeds nearing 40 miles an hour. Testing the suit's built in boosters he dodged and jetted out of the path of simulated holographic missiles in a blur of speed and faint exhaust plume from the boosters. He slid under barbed wire as bullets from targeting auto turrets zinged over his head. He stood, and let the rounds deflect off the armor like they were nothing more than raindrops.

John then activated the Plasma Barrier, which with a strange flash of gas, light and electricity immediately morphed into a rectangular wall of reddish energy as the air closest to the inch thick containment of superhot gas and energy heated, shimmering and causing the temperature readings outside of his suit to rise by a couple of degrees.

John marveled at it before he went to work practicing how to use it with various weapons and when able to angle it so fire was deflected, although he learned the hard way of Halsey's warning that it was not able to take sustained or heavy weapons fire as it collapsed on him once.

To his amazement, his adrenaline boost, which he and the others were starting to call Spartan Time, kicked in as the world seem to move at a fraction of its former speed as John's augmented vision actually watched and tracked several of the rounds as he side stepped and spun away in a blur of in-human speed as the projectiles sailed through the empty space where he had just been.

He had just dodged a burst of gunfire.

That achievement still hadn't dawned on him fully as Halsey's voice simply came in through the com link.

"Good job John. You should only get faster and better at that."

John was still slightly bewildered as he replied with an unnecessary nod.

"Yes ma'am."

Soon the other Spartans joined him on the course. Everyone ran awkwardly through the obstacles, though they had no coordination.

John expressed his worries to Dr. Halsey. "It will come to you soon enough. You've already received some subliminal training during your last cryo sleep—" Dr. Halsey told them, "—now all you need is time to get used to the suits."

More worrisome to John was the realization that they'd have to learn how to work together all over again. Their usual hand signals were too exaggerated now—a slight wave or tremble translated into fullforce punches or uncontrolled vibrations. They would have to use the COM channels for the time being.

As soon as he thought of this, his suit tagged and monitored the other MJOLNIR suits. Their standardissue UNSC neural chip—implanted in every UNSC soldier at induction—identified friendly soldiers and displayed them on their helmet HUDs. But this was different—all he had to do was concentrate on them, and a secure COM channel opened. It was extremely efficient.

And much to his relief, after drilling for thirty minutes, the Spartans had recovered all of their original group coordination, and more.

On one level, John moved the suit and, in return, it moved him. On another level, however, communication with his squad was so easy and natural, he could move and direct them as if they were an extension of his body.

Over the hangar's speakers, the Spartans heard Dr. Halsey's voice: "Spartans, so far so good. If anyone is experiencing difficulties with the suit or its controls, please report in."

"I think I'm in love," Sam replied. "Oh—sorry, ma'am. I didn't think that was an open channel."

"Flawless amplification of speed and power," Kelly said. "It's like I've been training in this suit for years."

"Do we get to keep them?" John asked.

"You're the only ones who can use them, Petty Officer. Who else could we give them to? We—" A technician handed her a headset. "One moment, please. Report, Captain."

Captain Wallace's voice broke over the COM channels. "We have contact with a second Imperial Ship. Profile reads as nearly the same as the one before. ma'am. And it is holding at Extreme range. They have been on the edge of the system and are now looking for their friends as they are scanning in high frequencies and lighting up the local space. We are moving behind the planet's moon in order to mask our profile. We cant take another one of them head on or possibly at all with our current shape and damage after the last fight. They are moving toward the planet via normal space."

"Your repair status?" she asked.

"Long-range communications inoperable. Slipstream generators offline. MAC system is online but we have to show ourselves in order to get a shot. We could possibly pull it off but our chances of success is extremely low. 20 Percent of our Archers fusion Missiles have been depleted with another 30 percent of them lost due to damage or destruction of their pods. And less I say we have multiple hull breaches and armor depleted on multiple sections. Our Plasma Barrier Emitter is nearly offline."

There was a long hiss of static. "If you need more time . . . I can try and draw them away."

"No, Captain," she replied, and carefully scrutinized John and the other armored Spartans. "We're going to have to fight them . . . and this time we have to win."

"However Captain you could draw them in for us. Our Spartans are going to take that ship."

There was a long several seconds of static on the other end.

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