Chapter 4

The Fall of Necruna

17 November, 2558

CAS Assault carrier, Seeker of Truth

17:00 hours

Xuda walked around to the opposite side of the holotable between him and the human demon who stood before him, stomping heavily and striking the metallic ground below the both of them with each step. 'Kaham was standing by his fleetmaster's side, holding onto the methane tank of the same grunt he has encountered earlier - who John had learned was named 'Supap'- as he tried to bite at the elite's arm in order to get away. The small sangheili stood unflinching as Supap kept trying to throw his weight in order to loosen his grip on him but 'Kaham was only getting more and more pissed at the smaller creature.

A hologram of thegalaxy lit up over the table with different locations marked, mostly the homeworld of each species and known halo installations including the Ark. the map zoomed in onto a sector within the Scutum-Centaurus arm, revealing a rather unique planet. The translated sangheili glyphs reported a vast range of

"Is this where we are going?"

Xuda nodded. "I have been told by our allies that this planet houses a potential forerunner installation. To what scale is uncertain but we do know it has some importance as forerunner constructs had been recently spotted fighting among themselves."

"Prometheans fighting with each other?"

The massive elite's obsidian black nails lightly scraped against the purple metal outlining the table before. John dismissed the sangheili's irritated tone directed at him and watched as the hologram zoomed in onto a section within the northern hemisphere which currently seemed to be in a state of freezing winter. He was shown images of a small roughly built human-designed base with both brutes and humans inhabiting the space and spotted a small number of tundra-coated falcons, M808 scorpions and M9 wolverines. Although the majority of their equipment was not painted and mostly outdated with Human-Covenant War designs they looked to have a fairly impressive arsenal on the ground already. As for the brutes he couldn't be certain but Xuda appeared to be interested in the small captured form of a jiralhanae faded into snowstorm.

"Not necessarily the prometheans, spartan." 'Kaham spoke up. "The brute war chieftain Paktus had sent us news that the installation's own defense system may have turned on your former Construct's promethean force."

The place was likely then ran by a monitor who didn't take too kindly to hostile attempts at a takeover of the installation much like Exuberant Witness on Genesis. Supap screeched which consequently grabbed their attention, 'Kaham had accidentally pulled on the vent of the grunt's pack which would slowly suffocate him if it wasn't fixed. Xuda quickly barked at 'kaham to release the grunt and the unggoy quickly fixed his own harness and got up quickly, running around the table and close to Xuda, trying to hide behind him as he clung onto the back of the large elite's leg. John was momentarily confused as instead of lashing out again like he expected, Xuda carefully grabbed his cape and slowly draped it over the cowering grunt to completely cover him. His face had turned from one of aggression to one displaying a much more soft display, almost one of parental care similar to that he and the other spartan II candidates would often get from Halsey during the first few weeks of bootcamp when they were six.

John could see that 'kaham looked at him as if he was rolling his eyes in an annoyed state and Xuda seemed to be a tad bit embarrassed that he had saw what just happened, realizing that he had just lost any chance to intimidate him after he had just witnessed him protect a grunt. None of them spoke for a moment before Xuda had decided to break the silence.

"Did the brutes activate the defense system?" He growled, heavy with disdain and annoyance as he shifted the wait on his feet.

"Unknown Fleetmaster. However I hope that they did not alert the enemy of their habitation on the planet."

Xuda growled and leaned over his side of the holotable, looking at one of the images of showing a forerunner structure next to a lake that had been frozen over. "Are communications to their fleets still open?"

"Communications to their ships are, but access to the base itself has not been set up yet."

John felt unease as he witnessed Supap move out from underneath the elite's cape and hugged Xuda from the side, angled away from both him and 'Kaham. The smaller sangheili only yawned, green eyes coming to a close as he then made a teasing bite of his mandibles at the unggoy which ended with the grunt holding a tight grip on the red combat harness of the Fleetmaster with his stone-like claws. The large elite sighed with an irritated growl and gestured to the door exiting the bridge with a motion of his head. 'Kaham looked at him and nodded before leaving, the spartan followed suit as he silent followed the commander out but were stopped by a low hiss from Xuda.

"Take the demon to the forge, get his equipment repaired. We are expected to exit slipspace sometime soon and we will have to be on the ground as soon as possible."

'Kaham nodded silently to his shipmaster and led the spartan out, the two walking silently as they navigated the bright, purple halls.

John only followed the elite as he lead him to the forge under uncomfortable silence. Personally he never found the designs on the interior of covenant or sangheili ships very distracting but more on the side of being unnecessarily decorative a majority of the time. He could feel 'Kaham staring him down on the back of his neck. What was going on with the crew on this ship? Xuda always seemed irritated with him, Supap looked to be terrified, and although 'Kaham was much more tolerant in having a spartan on board like the others, he seemed off and a bit over-friendly than what he had expected from a sangheili. Even if he was now part of the Swords, he was still ex-storm covenant and behavior like that was most likely not common.

Necruna, CSO supercarrier Exalted Injunction

17:00 hours

Rtol frowned. The humans continued to delay their inevitable destruction and it frustrated him. The Turbulent Blade now drifted as floating debris over the near-ocean planet alongside a number of his own and the UNSC's ships. Rtol kept his flagship at bay, accompanied by a number of small ships as they sat watching from a distance while arching plasma torpedoes at the few in-range human vessels to whittle down their numbers as the rest of his ships were ahead taking the fight directly. The Violent Repercussion was close by, having fallen back after have taken a significant beating to the bow and losing the ability to fire the ship's extraction beam and a majority of firing systems as well. They still had a number of ships even if the humans were left with ten, not including the flagship which had been identified as an experimental variant of the human Autumn-class capital. Its name- the UNSC Determination of Hope- was plastered onto it's side in white paint against a dark hull like any other human-constructed vessel.

Destroying that ship would be extra satisfying and he leaned his back into seat, but he would have to put his own desire behind as the matriarch had personally asked him to subjugate anyone he saw worthy in the effort to track the Infinity

the human female still stood by the major ahead of him by the ship's display. Almost hiding submissively away from him. He watched as a CCS battlecruiser and a corvette both combust into flames for a small, brief moment and exploding after their energy shielding had been breached. The debris had struck nearby ships due to being in a tight formation, destroying another three ships and crippling a supporting CRS carries

The human looked over to him in uncertainty for direction on what to do and he internally scoffed. He looked at the display and studied the much smaller vessels as they moved into a more defensive position.

"Order the rest to fall back and move us in with our escort ahead of us. I am done waiting for the shipmaster to get the situation controlled. And then I want to open fire, make their ships scatter and leave the capital ship open."

The major nodded and gently pushed the human away to the side in order to reach a set on controls at his station. Rtol was greatly tempted to just move the female down to infantry among the cannon fodder like the kig-yar and unggoy where she would be sent to die on the field like the honorless creature she was if she wasn't eaten by the others first. Better yet, he may be able to could get her moved onto one of the jiralhanae-controlled ships under the Matriarch's control. Perhaps the Violent Repercussion if it survived the conflict as it was already closeby.

"And be sure not to destroy the autumn-class carrier, leave it for capture."

"What about ground forces, Supreme Commander?" an officer asked him. "Spartan fireteams on the small spaces of land and any known UNSC bases of operations are being suppressed but they have initiated their evacuation to the ships, reports of captured locations having had all data erased by the humans."

"Any confirmation on slain demons?"

The officer was quiet for a moment as he gathered the data on his console. "Six confirmed kills supreme commander. Only one entire team of four individuals."

"Then tell them to keep on the pressure but make haste, they may bring their 'cole protocol' into effect."

"Supreme Commander 'Dantakee!" the Major grabbed his attention. "The human ships are deploying everything they have to the surface! Escape and drop pods, dropships, everything!"

Rtol straitened up in his seat and activated the primary control panel mounted onto his seat and watched as the human ships gathered almost into an arrow-like formation around the Determination. He didn't like the looks of the situation and activated the Ship's homing beacon for one of the Matriarch's guardians to follow in on. It was meant as a signal for when he had subdued the opposing force but a EMP Pulse from the custode and promethean backup would prove helpful at the moment. It could also provide a large help in capturing the ships as they would not have a way to fight back once power was stripped.

"Change of plans, officer. Order any deployed dropships within a kilometer back to their respective ships."

"Major." The red-armored elite in question looked in his direction in the corner of his eye. "Have the fleet prepare for a in-system slipspace jump to the other side of the planet upon the guardian's arrival. Let the humans get caught in the pulse."

The major nodded and got back to work, although he braced himself once he had spotted three of the smaller human ships had successfully slipped into the Exalted Injunction shields. The guns were tempted to cease firing in the caution to prevent accidental firing on the nanolaminate hull. Rtol merely smiled smugly They were going to exhaust all their weapons on points of the now exposed plaiting before likely accepting their fate or drive their own ships into the Injunction in a final attempt to do damage. He looked at the human and watched as her face filled with horror, begging for them to run then give up their lives so easily. In truth he prefered it that way, not out of the well-being for the human but it would give him yet another task to do. Letting his prey get away just to come down moments later for the kill when they think they're safe.

One of the ships was successfully destroyed and the others quickly hid behind the debris, beginning to use their smaller point-defense weapons to catapult larger chunks of the fallen ship at the CSO carrier. It didn't have much effect outside of completely detaching one of the carrier's own smaller point-defense weapons but the quick assault of projectiles that they called 'archer missiles' punctured the hull by sheer force and numbers, destroying a small block and several cannons. Another one of the ships had been shot down and debris collided with the remaining ship's engine and caused it to begin slowly drifting closer. Seraph fighters and phantom gunboats quickly intercepted the malfunctioning spacecraft before it exploded, an outcome that could only be comprehended as an action of self-destruction. Taking the Phantoms and seraphs with it and punching yet another hole into his ship.

"All craft are onboard, Supreme Commander." the officer informed him

The matriarch's guardian had finally dropped out of slipspace and the major announced that the ship was jumping across the ship's internal intercom. He read on the bridge's display any of his slipspace-capable ships had followed suit, only taking minutes to reach their destination and slowly moving back to their previous position as the remaining human ships and a couple of his own who failed to jump now stalled motionless above the planet. Rtol stood from his seat as he noticed the culmination of a light blue mass gathering at the front of the bridge near the display, his men at their controls stood at their spot and brought their heads down and fists to their chest in a salute as he took a step or two before dropping down and knelt before the mass as it manifested itself into a solid object. He kept his head down out of respect for the Matriarch as she approached him.

"Supreme Commander Rtol 'Dantakee.. I'm surprised you decided to leave a few after all." she teased him, voice coming off playfully.

"I believe these may aid in our search for the Infinity, Matriarch. If not they may hold useful information regarding other worlds they had chosen to hide in."

He felt a small pressure on the top of his helmet and the blue-glowing hand of the matriarch slided down the side of his helmet and on his chin, lifting his head gently and he slowly stood up in response. "I want you to sent your men onto those ship, the Determination of Hope being the priority target."

He nodded in submission and she began to walk away.

"And tell your men that if they find John on any of those ships... I want him alive, preferably unharmed if possible."

"But- Matriarch."

Cortana turned around and looked at him right in the eyes causing the sangheili to freeze up immediately.

"But what? Supreme Commander."

"I must express my concern regarding the demon you insist on calling by name." He shifted his legs as she began walking back forwards him. "The Demon could be much more trouble than it is worth."

"Do you think I am not capable of keeping a single spartan contained, Supreme Commander?"

Rtol bowed his head down in respect quickly. "It's not that holy one, but the demon-"

"then find him. And when you are done with the fleet- either if you choose to destroy it after gathering the data or let me send another fleet to secure the ships for our own use- continue looking for the Infinity."

Rtol stood quietly for a moment and nodded, defeated. "As you wish, Matriarch."

The blue form of the matriarch seemingly evaporated into thin air and he turned to the officer. "I will depart on the next phantom to the flagship personally."

The major looked over at him and nodded "I will order for the huragok to start internal repairs while you are away, Supreme Commander."

Rtol nodded. "That will be best." His eyes shifted to the human female who had been staring at the ground to avoid eye contact the entire time. He approached her and she looked up at the towering seven-ten figure, grabbing her by the arm he hissed lowly from under his helmet. "And you are coming with me."

Rtol grabbed the human by the arm and dragged her all the way to phantom waiting for them as she fought back with him, trying to desperately break the iron grip. He threw her on the ground of the phantom in front of a number of sangheili warriors of both subspecies who only looked down at the human in confusion before choosing to ignore it. She slowly got up during the ride and attempted to hide behind one of the other elites but she had been gently pushed back to the center. The phantom stopped within one of the hangars of the Determination and the elites immediately began to fight the resistance that gathered in the area. Humans were firing at them from a control center above with their primitive projectile-based weapons wielded by a number of their own standard subspecies, there was an unexpected lack of their genetically augmented siblings but it would only work in their favor. Semi-automatic fire rained down onto them from above and they all dashed to the covering overhang that the room created, dragging the human by force as she chose to try and hide rather than fight.

The humans were alarmed upon seeing her with them, either shocked that a member of their own race was in such distress or accompanying them on their crusade. Reaching the bridge was easy, Humans often left directions on the ground to key locations or entire terminals dedicated to maps on their ships. Before the Covenant Empire had gotten their quick understanding of the human's primary languages, identifying the text would have been much more difficult. The lack of any real opponents did not help, waves of human cannon fodder quickly fell before their might. Only the weaker sangheili fell to their weapons. Unsurprisingly the ship's bridge had been sealed tight, causing them to have to wait until backup shock troopers armed with heavier weaponry such as fuel rod cannons to arrive and blast the door open.

Every human in the room began firing upon them with small arm fire. Rtol quickly threw the human in front of him to use as a shield, her screams of pain erupted in the air as she was struck by a single bullet in the right forearm and the human crew stopped firing after their shipmaster raised an arm in their direction as an order.

Rtol quickly raised his half-drained rifle up to the female's head as a means of bargaining to gain the advantage.

"You will surrender your ship and all its data intact or I won't hesitate to melt the female's head."

The human only laughed at him in a short burst and Rtol silently frowned in not understanding what the shipmaster found amusing.

"We deleted what we had before we even came here as a precaution, Lasky knew it was only a matter of time you would be arriving at Necruna and we willingly volunteered to slow you down specifically."

Just as the shipmaster finished Rtol had noticed a large series of explosions behind his own CSO carrier, turning the human roughly to the side to get a better look outside of the bridge's window which caused the fragile being in his grasp to whimper in pain. The Violent Repercussion has been destroyed by a colliding cruiser, looking as if it had been purposely driven into the assault carrier. Another CAS carrier he had taken with him on his journey, the Consequence of Revolution began detaching blocks and firing upon them. Human demons must have infiltrated the ship and the officer in charge must be trying to solve the issue on his own. Rtol growled and turned to the spec-ops sangheili to his left behind him. "return to the Exalted Injunction. Tell the major to keep touch with the Revolution for updates about their situation and if communications are cut then destroy it. And increase security around all ports of spacecraft access."

The special operations sangheili nodded silently to his commanding officer and turned around to leave as Rtol focused once again on the UNSC shipmaster who was sporting a smug grin on their face. "The Infinity. You will tell me where it is."

The human shipmaster didn't move from her confidant pose and Rtol understood that the human wasn't going to fulfill his request so easily. He threw the female painfully onto an elite minor next to him and growled at the shipmaster, stomping threateningly at the human as the crew raised their sidearms in his direction and the shipmaster bolted to reach a pulsing red button on the main control panel.

"Hold it right there there, big guy." The human warned. "move another muscle and in one minute we'll all be incinerated to a few thousand degrees kelvin and we are close enough to take your big fancy ship with us."

Rtol hissed, the echo erupting from underneath his helmet. He would only have to stall for a moment of time, the journey back to the phantom in the ship's hangar would take twelve minutes if the spec-ops commander were to keep a moderate pace.

"So why don't you tell me something instead? Where is Osiris and Blue Team? We know they're not on Genesis where they left their tracker."

"Your attempts are futile, human. Even if I do die today, even if my fleet is destroyed at your command.. more ships can be constructed and warriors will be trained. Willing to die for the matriarch's army."

"Not what I wanted to hear."

Gunshot rang out as one of the crew closer to the door executed a kig-yar who neglected to defend itself with their small arms and the remaining elites, unggoy and kig-yar raised their weapons in retaliation. Rtol hissed at them, forcing them to return to a neutral but cautious stance as he noticed the shipmaster's hand begin to hover dangerously close to the self-destruct.

"Let's try that again-"

"Supreme Commander."

Everyone focused on a qirvian elite donning a red major combat harness in the front of the massing group of aliens by the door.

"Shipmaster of the Consequence of Revolution reports that a unit of the unaugmented humans had infiltrated with a captured phantom. Multiple blocks had been detached and the humans had been exterminated but they had brought an unknown device with them."

There was an extended silence as the distant sound of an explosion reached the ship and all looked out to the window to witness the destruction of the Consequence of Revolution. The explosion was from the inside, determined by debris flying outward and the real lack of any visible conflicting craft nearby. The humans must have detonated one of their warheads onboard the ship before they were taken care of by the Revolution's shipmaster. The human shipmaster was surprised as well as they had seemed to have nothing to do with the event.

"Enough of this." Rtol growled, lunging at the human. Startled, the shipmaster slammed a closed fist onto the button. The Supreme Commander yelled in fury as both groups began firing at one another, the sound of weapons fighting to outscream each other. The alarms rang and the few lights lighting the room turned into a blood-red color.

Sixty seconds until Self-Destruct. Repeat, Sixty seconds. Evacuate immediately.

"Knights! Hear my command!" Rtol screamed over the chaos. The large promethean constructs teleported into the room and roared their war cry, revealing the orange glowing human-like skull that lay underneath their metallic masks. "Take them as prisoners! Bring us safely to my ship!"

Rtol knocked out the human shipmaster with a blow to the heretic's unarmored head with his rifle and threw the body over to one of the mechanical beings who then promptly took tight hold and teleported away. The process was quickly repeated with a small number of others before Rtol took the arm of the female under his ranks, she did not bother resisting and stayed quiet about her pain. A knight came up from behind them and tightly hugged its arms around them in a cold embrace before teleporting away. When the group arrived, Rtol let go of the human's arm. Letting the weak creature fall onto the ground and clutch her wound for a moment before forcing her up with an iron grip on her injured arm.

"Get your wound fixed before I decide to tear your arm off myself." He snarled, pushing the human in the direction of the hallway. She remained silent with her head held low as he turned around. They had been transported to the ship's onboard prison block with the knights and sangheili wardens forcefully unarming the captured humans. He stood over the quiet body of the human shipmaster and halted the sangheili in charge before they had gotten a chance to even over their hand over the human.

"I want this one separated far from the rest. Torture is permitted to extract information if necessary but I want the human to remain alive. If anything happens to them than whoever is responsible is to answer to me personally."

The sangheili nodded and dragged the limp body off and Rtol began his way back to the bridge. Clutching his chest in the spot where he had realized his armor had been breached by a human pistol round. He passed a pair of sangheili who stopped in shock and eyes widened, moving out of his way to the sides of the hallway as he continued his way to the bridge. Perhaps they were mislead of his potential death? the ship would have had plenty of time to have explode by now.

All eyes focused on him once he entered through the door, jaws of many sangheili gaped open in astonishment. No one bothered to talk but they all stood there as he took his seat in his command chair, gripping the metal arms with stress. He looked at the display and saw as the Determination now remained only shards of debris slowly flying down to orbit.

"What is the status of other units sent to the ships?"

"Returned teams report that data had been cleared by remaining crew of their ships. However we still wait for three to return." The major responded.

"Destroy the ships. Leave none left."

"But what of the teams?"

"I do not care for their lives. Destroy the ships at once."

The major nodded and turned to his console. And quickly the order to launch had been received by the gunners and plasma torpedoes sped away, ripping the smaller UNSC frigates in half. Despite of the situation he couldn't help but feel humbled by the humans. They had willingly thrown away their lives to try and stop him specifically. Smiling under his helmet in partial satisfaction at the understanding that he had established himself was a prominent threat to the UNSC and their allies. He sat watching the screen for a moment before turning to the loyal major at his side.

"Return us to the matriarch's world, there we will search for the Infinity once again. Leave the rest of the ships to finish what was started here."

A/N: so what are you guys thinking about the story so far? tell me on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being really good) I'm planning to focus on the Arbiter, Palmer, and Fireteams Osiris and Blue team and possibly the Infinity in the next chapter as I have been kinda leaving them in the background for the last two chapters I think.