Chapter 3

"Spartan, it has been far too long since we have seen each other," "You and me both, Arbiter,"

"So how is the battle going?" asked the Chief, "Rather well Spartan, so far we have destroyed 2 of their vessels and heavily damaged another," said the Arbiter, just as the Chief began to relax, Cortana said "Slip-space rupture! It's a big one!" "One?" said the Arbiter and Chief in unison, "Quick, Selas'! Bring up the front view!" the Arbiter shouted, the elite did as he was told and brought up a holographic display of the battle, just as he did, a massive blue portal opened up...

"What is that?!" said the Chief the slightest trace of fear in his voice, a massive covenant assault carrier had entered the battle, "Oh no, that's a CSO-class super carrier!" said Cortana, "They haven't been seen since the fall of Reach, it is a massive Covenant vessel measuring at 1181.15274256km in total volume," "Well, what do we do?" said the Chief, mere seconds later, a massive explosion shook the ship, "We must escape, we don't have time to run in this ship," said the Arbiter, he went to a microphone like-object and pushed a button, "All hands, make your way to an escape pod! We must abandon ship!" "Is that all you plan to do?" said the Chief, "You underestimate me Spartan, plug your A.I into the ship, I will tell her what to do..."

"Ok then..." said the Chief, removing her data chip from the back of his helmet, he plugged her into the terminal controls, she appeared as she normally did, but flickered a little before doing anything, "Ok, Cortana is it? Turn the engines onto full blast, aim for the direct middle of the super-carrier!" "You got it," said Cortana, holding her fingers on her temple, "It's done," the Chief quickly removed her from the terminal and plugged her back into his helmet. "Let's go," urged the Arbiter as another explosion shook the ship, "come on, let's go!"

The Chief and the Arbiter soon ended up at the hangar, with the ability to see outside of the ship, they saw that the entire front was decimated, "Quickly, we shall take my phantom!" shouted the Arbiter, two elite major's were guarding the entrance to the phantom, and got inside of it when they saw their ship master, "Hurry, get us out of here!" shouted the Arbiter, the phantom turned on and quickly flew out of the hangar, just before a blast from the super-carrier destroyed everything in it.

As the Chief and Arbiter watched from the side of the phantom, the carriers engines glowing brighter than they should, and all of the purple beams coming from the escape pods as they jettisoned out of the ship, "So Arbiter, what is your plan?" said the Chief, "Well Spartan, I have activated an emergency beacon at the Shadow of Intent's last coordinates, so our main plan is to find the survivors of my fleet and wait until a ship arrives at the beacon," "Well, let's just hope everything goes to plan then," said the Chief.

As the escape pods broke through the atmosphere of the nearby planet, the phantom sped away towards them...