Part I :: Contact

Chapter 2 :: Where the hell?

November 2, 2552 AD

1147 Hours

Vengard Jungle, Second Plate, Ma'Chenema

The chief's vehicle and the transport warthog pulled into the custody of alpha base. "Really kicked some alien ass out there, eh chief?" Chips asked in his favorable Australian accent. Master Chief just looked at him a moment, shrugging.

"Chief!" It was Miranda Keyes. The spartan saluted for a moment, his commander returning the salute. "Welcome back, Chief." While he did not really feel all that welcome, he definitely felt at home, seeing familiar faces and colors of green everywhere.

"Commander, we've got more information you'd probably want to hear." Chief said. She nodded her head and told them to follow her. The chief walked into a tent, in it: a large holotable presumably for Commander Keyes, and lockers and shelves for data pads and papers.

"Chief, upload me into the holotable." He did as asked, removing the AI chip from the back of his helmet and sticking it in a pedestal in the table. Cortana's form appeared before them, the chief watching closely. "Commander. The Covenant are planning to activate the halo."

"So we need to stop them." Miranda was fairly optimistic, but with the amount of Covenant vehicles and such, that optimism proved to be useless. "But how? We don't know how to get to the halo..."

"There are cities which act as gateways to the halo. It seems the Covenant are trying to gain access through military means." Cortana morphed into a hologram of the city. There was a large tower in the center. It turned red. "This building in the center of the city seems to be of high importance. If I were to place a bet on where the gate would be, it'd be here. We can defend this point through diplomacy with the local population… They could give us access."

"How are we supposed to hold diplomacy with them? We don't speak their language, and we don't have that much time."

"Took me a little bit, but I managed to decipher some pieces of their language." Keyes was impressed and rubbed her chin for a moment.

"And you said some military police are on their way?" The AI affirmed. "So we can just wait for them then… Not like we have much of a choice any way. The covenant got us hunkered down." Cortana responded with a maybe, saying that the government was close to ordering a slaughter of all non Allied forces sentient life on the planet. "Well if nothing more than a squad is inbound, I'm sure we can handle them… Any more info?"

"The Covenant are thinking of glassing the cities so they can get into the halo. A bit much, and I don't know how effective it'll be..." Cortana added.

"Alright then… We wait for these peacekeepers to come, talk to them. Hopefully they agree to help us defend the cities, and help us thwart the Covenant's plans."

Miranda dismissed them and for about an hour and forty minutes nothing important happened. All she could wonder though was where the hell have these aliens been?

Cortana was the first to detect them. "-Peacekeeper dropship inbound!" She warned Miranda. The commander walked out of the tent to have a look.

The vehicle hovered over the UNSC base, lights from the nose of the vehicle blinking on and off unnaturally. The ship was basically, a brick with two engines on each side. Rather noisy too. It had visible guns mounted on its nose; its engines had missile launchers.

It moved over to an open area and began lowering itself. The vehicle engaged its landing gear and shut off its engines. There was a bay door that had started to open. Marines lined up with guns and other weapons at the sight of an unidentified vehicle. Commander Keyes ordered her soldiers to hold their fire.

A door on the back of the ship slid open and out came a squad of eight peacekeepers. Five of them had hardlight shields deployed alongside an SMG type weapon. Two of them had assault rifles and one of them was armed with a pistol. The one with the pistol seemed to be a higher rank than the others, being distinguished by an orange hardlight 'V' on the forehead of his helmet.

He brought a microphone off his hip and put it close to his helmet, first adjusting his speaker. "-Attention! Who is the highest ranking officer present?" Were the first things he uttered. Cortana was amazed. They had a translator that allowed them to speak English, without ever hearing it. He sounded like he was speaking latin behind the translator. Miranda was slightly nervous at first. But she was surrounded by dozens of UNSC soldiers including the two more than exceptional soldiers, the Chief, and Sergeant Johnson.

She held her hand up, Magnum pistol on her hip. The man took easily saw her hand, and put his microphone away. He told his troop to stand guard and progressed on towards the woman. His spartan-like suit did not intimidate her all that much as she had the chief by her side. His white armor reflected the sun's light fairly well, the blue glowing bands on the side of his right arm only making him all the more visible. His helmet visor was a near one-hundred percent absorbent black, with only a small reflection from light.

As he stopped in front of the Commander. His visor lifted revealing a man with a tan complexion. He had a scar across his right eye, and his irises glowed a deep yellow. His mouth was hidden behind a device on the inside of his helmet. He looked rather human otherwise to the Miranda. He spoke, his suit speakers on a more hushed level. "-Captain Zaid Ma'emter. You've stationed your men on a restricted planet. Military action will be taken if this base isn't removed by nightfall."

"No can can do, Captain. Until the Covenant threat of activating the halo is removed, we have to remained stationed."

He looked up at the sky, seeing the covenant ships passing by.

"And we have reason to believe they plan on glassing that city." He said something in his language.

"-Just doing my job… I have to ask you guys to leave, unless you'd like a hearing in our court of law?" She was adamant about stopping the activation of halo. If she followed them, she'd leave her men. There was a long pause as the two stared each other down.

"Okay… I'd like a court hearing." He nodded his head and turned his head to the side. He began speaking his only language. He turned to face her. "How many of my men can I take?"

"-Five-man squad including you." She looked at him as if he was crazy. She shook her head.

"Only four?" He shook his head. "That's ludacris. Ten of us and we have a deal."

"-What's ludacris is us actually giving you a chance at court. Take it or leave it." She glared at him for a moment. As strong as she'd like to pretend they were military wise, she could see that they were outclassed. They had around two-hundred men and women in military personnel against an alien civilization of unknown potential. Even if, military wise, the aliens were weaker, they had the advantage of numbers. There was a moment silence until she sighed.

"Alright… I'll gather my men and we'll appear at your court." He nodded his head, turning around and shouting in his language.

"Load the Heistrom!" His men holstered their weapons and loaded up into the dropship. He turned back to the Commander. "-We'll be in the dropship when you're ready." He too joined the other peacekeeper police in the Heistrom dropship vehicle.

One of them spoke up. "Captain. Are you sure these people are not Niptuns? Just look at them." He let out a short chuckle. It was painfully obvious this group of people were not from the planet, Czeq.

"Of course I'm sure, kid. Use your brain." The guy just stared at the captain for a moment, deeming him to be correct.

Some moments passed, Miranda addressing her troops and telling them that she was leaving with the peacekeepers. She boarded the Heistrom with Master chief and questioned whether she should take Johnson, but he advised against, stating he would command the troops. She agreed with him as he was a good leader and could rally them on her leave. She took a small squad of ODS Troopers.

Once they were all in, the captain hit the ceiling of the vehicle twice. They heard a robotic whir from the front and the loading ramp closed. The interior of the Heistrom was pitch black, the ODST and Keyes wondering how anyone could stand this level of darkness.

Cortana was busy meddling with the Peacekeepers' suit systems. The captain had a private channel which was heavily encrypted and locked using what was identified as a super quantum multicheck system. The AI was completely locked out of the system, but being the persistent AI she was, she worked on a way around.

The ride was silent and quick with the ODSTs talking occasionally and the Thylamuns speaking their language. They landed inside of the city within two minutes of take off from Alpha base.

The ramp opened up, sunlight peeking through space before the it fully opened. There were two apparent police officers but they were not Peacekeepers. They were lesser in armor and weaponry. Civilians walked up and about the area. Cortana made a conjecture that the peacekeepers were military police and these were standard civilian police, which turned out to be true.

Another one she made from visuals was that there were three alien species. One of them that she could make out looked like a human. From the six-hundred individuals that she scanned she deemed that, on average they were a few inches shorter than the human populus. The second had an appearance similar to spartans in terms of height and overall build. The females, although tall, were slightly shorter than the average spartan by a few inches. The species distinct features were their heights and glowing eyes. The last race had irises that glowed instead of the entire eye. The men appeared to be taller than human males on average with the females slightly smaller.

They were reminiscent of the forerunners in terms of architecture with glowing lines of blue and orange and organic-geometric mixed design. They seemed less advanced overall in comparison though.

A large screen broadcasted news to the civilians and police force. Cortana, although unable to understand certain words, discovered that the hegemony was about to bring in their armada of thirty ships to combat High Charity and the other covenant cruisers. The synthetic was concerned, expressing it to the chief.

The thirty ships were vastly smaller than their covenant opposition. The average size, in comparison to everything else, was about atmost a kilometer. They had to be packing some very serious fire power.

Infrastructure wise, the city was exemplar. The roads were relatively clear in terms of vehicular traffic save for a few assault hover vehicles with large siege weapons mounted on their backs. There were teleport pads that reduced civilian travel time drastically and allowed instantaneous short distance travel. On top of that, the verticality of the buildings created beautiful, picture-worthy scenes with light from the planet's star and some dust casting amazing Godrays.

The captain requested that they follow him through one of the teleport pads. Before stepping on it, a third dimensional holographic map of the location they were teleporting to appeared. The chief was the last to step on. In a brilliant flash of non-blinding light, they were at the top of a skyscraper. One more set of stairs up and they would have been on the roof. They were outside allowing the winds to wash over them. A standard metal railing blocked them from falling off. The view was beyond beautiful. They could see the plateau they came from, with the dense green fauna off in the distance, complimenting the orange purple light of sunset.

Miranda wanted to come back just for the views when all of this was over and the war was won. The MCPO felt partially moved, even if it were for just a moment, his spartan senses attempting to arrest those emotions.

"-Just a bit more walking guys..." As they approached the other end of the skyscraper, they arrived at a door. There were two peacekeepers sitting up on the ledge of the door, their rifles by their sides. A man and a woman. They were talking about some random stuff, enjoying the sunset. The man noticed the captain approaching and hopped off from the ledge with his rifle. The woman just watched, her helmet off.

A couple of the ODS troopers found themselves glancing at her more than a few times. "Captain Mira I take it." The superior officer nodded, the peacekeeper opening the door up for him, inputting a set of codes and such. "You're good to go." It opened and the group walked through.

The interior was much like any other forerunner interior with grey colors but blue highlights. They had a humongous tank with a decent bunch of aquatic life. The seats and large hovering cushions suggested that this place was some form of a lounge. There were peacekeepers and standard civilian police running back and forth. One of them ran up to Mira.

"Captain, once you get those guys to the courthouse, meet me at the West side of the deck below. We have some orders." He nodded his head, and progressed through corridors and halls. One of them was long but had a view of the city below that they could look at. Flying vehicles passed the large skyscraper emitting a thick and deep hum. Blue-violet emitted from the engines of most. Miranda had psyched herself before walking into the courtroom so she could stand tall.

The group walked into the courtroom where five people resided. It was fairly small, only able to house around twenty people. A fairly aged woman, who looked to be in her forties (actually around two-hundred), spoke from behind a podium. "Captain Mira, you are dismissed. The rest of you stand guard." They nodded, securing the door and around the courthouse. She wedged in an earpiece, silently cleared her throat and spoke.

"-Holla… Commander and her accompanying party. I'm Admiral Oneia Echae'num. You requested a court hearing from the Czeq United Republic's civil defense department. You wish to stay on the surface of this shield world. Why should we let you?" Cortana always marvelled at their speaker system, capable of transmitting English, even without the aliens knowing a lick of it. She'd figure out how it worked in due time.

"Well. I don't know if you've noticed but there is an alien conglomeration above your shield world. They want the Halo inside."

"-What makes you so sure?" Miranda thought that was a dumb question but held her tongue back.

"We've been fighting them for close to thirty years now. We know what they're here for." The woman's glowing irises dilated around the pupil only to open once more as she observed the group.

"-We don't appreciate war not fought by us in our space, Commander..."

"They would have come here anyway. We followed them through slip space to prevent the activation of Halo inside this planet." Oneia's eyes opened up slightly.

"-Slipspace..." She was surprised that this alien species was using slipspace as their means of travel. It was quite a dangerous method and overall worse in comparison to theirs… Albeit, their method of warp had a chance to be more dangerous than anything slipspace could ever fathom. Miranda nodded. "-Tell me. What would the activation of the ring do?"

"It would wipe out all life in the galaxy." Oneia bit her lip.

"-All life?" Miranda nodded. "So it is a weapon..." She muttered in her language. "-Well... Now we require some basic information." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "-Your home planet. What's its name?"

"Earth." Miranda answered stoutly.

"-Is it in close proximity to this world?" Miranda knew about what was blacklisted information and what was not. The location of Earth was one of them.

"I can't say..." Oneia understood why but would have her way eventually.

"-Are there any other intelligent species near this… Earth?" She nodded her head.

"All of them so far have been a part of the hostile Covenant forces."

"-And the Covenant are the aliens currently attacking our planet?" Miranda once again nodded. "-I believe we have identified your ship… You are alone whereas your opposition has a ships nearing a thousand. Their technologies appear more advanced than yours." Miranda did not answer that one. "-Surely you would have come with backup?"

"There was no time and the ship we tailed through slip space had a high value target on it. We had to chase it… It was our only opportunity. They were glassing our planet."

"-Glassing?" One of her subordinates, who was taking some documentation of the session, spoke. Miranda affirmed. Oneia gave the man a side glance. It was a form of disobedience for a council member who was not a judge to speak to the people of question.

"They fire excess amounts of plasma onto a planet's surface to destroy it. All that's left afterwards is glass." The admiral nodded her head. She'd never heard of using plasma to scorch a planet clean. It seemed very inefficient. Perhaps this Covenant could manufacture plasma with ease.

"-Quite the peril, hmm?" Her council began talking amongst themselves. They asked her a final question to tell to these humans. "-Before we let you go… What is the name of your race?"

"Humans."

"-Well… Humans. We grant you and your army permission to stay on the surface of this planet. Make no mistake we will be-" As she attempted to finish her statement a violent tremor shook the building. Blinding light came forth from the courthouse door windows. A peacekeeper broke through the door.

"Admiral! They're invading! They're attacking the Spire of Jeun." The man had an assault rifle raised and at the ready. More tremors shook the building. "We need to get to safety!" The admiral stood up from her seat, looked down at her wrists and removed apparent bracelets.

It was a taboo to do so and a violation of a lot of civil laws. But she was an admiral and had certain privileges above the average citizen of the Czeq Government.

Once she had done this, a blue mistful energy flowed around her, concentrating at the fists. She removed her judicial robe and threw it by the wayside, revealing a fairly fit build. She descended from the podium and approached Miranda, earpiece still in.

"-Commander. We're being… 'glassed'." Oneia said to Miranda, using the newly learned term as to get comfortable with the Human. An explosion erupted on the top of the building as banshees and other vehicles flew overhead. High Charity and other covenant battleships had started glassing their way into the Halo. The council had quickly put in clearance for the human race, allowing biometric scans to pick them up. Gunfire erupted in the streets below and on the rooftops above as Covenant forces were dropped off.

Khazir took the lead, even though he was only a recruit. The Council along with the humans followed him. "Ma'am. We need to get to the roofs for evac. Follow my lead." He had his transformable laser pulse rifle on the ready. The Chief also had his Battle Rifle ready. A banshee shot smashed against one of the lower floors, erupting in a fire of green, red and blue, causing the skyscraper to vibrate again. The group had weapons drawn.

The familiar sound of shade turrets echoed through the corridors as they got closer to the exit. A covenant dropship was dropping a few troops off. Light from the sun broke through as they stepped onto the roof. Khazir saw three dead peacekeepers, each one a reflection of himself. He gulped, his throat feeling a little coarse.

The shade turrets on the dropship began firing on him, but the admiral condensed a ball of natural energy and threw it at the vehicle.

She landed a critical shot and so the vehicle blew. Khazir quickly turned and began firing on the covenant ahead. The chief and ODSTs doing the same. Miranda had an SMG one of the ODSTs handed her. Khazir used his suit comms to call in a Heistrom for immediate evacuation. There was a wait time of about five minutes. He spoke through his speakers.

"-Evac in two aesons!" Miranda was the first to question what he said as she put a few rounds down range at an elite.

"What's an aeson?!" She asked. Cortana spoke first.

"-A unit of time equal to around two point six minutes." The group held out, with the chief downing a decent bunch of covenant, ensuring that the commander was not harmed.

His battle rifle rang like a bell to the ear. Bullets flew forth from the heavy barrel plunging into armor or flesh or disintegrating against energy shields. The only times he missed his shot were when the gun itself was inaccurate.

His mind was only eighty percent invested in the battle at hand. The other thinking back on the courthouse, Cortana the same way. Still she did her job as a battle assistant, but multitasked, drawing conclusions about the new species they had met. The thylamuns, Niptuns, and Vakarians, they were so called. A very interesting bunch of life.

"-The dropship's coming in! It leaves in a quarter! We need to go and now!" He shouted over the gunfire, standing up and deploying a hardlight shield. He fired his rifle at the covenant forces, downing them relatively quickly at closer ranges. His shields broke under the amount of plasma fire. He was pelleted with scorching hot projectiles until he and assistance from the chief stopped that for good. He was panting hard but continued on.

He motioned for them to follow, but a covenant banshee started towards their direction. He could barely see it because of the sun's blinding rays. It fired off a volley of plasma torpedoes. The explosives drilled into the floor separating the group. Miranda and the Chief had made it but the others slid down to the level below. The ODSTs, Oneia, and her civilian council had to take the long way to go to get out of there. Khazir cursed under his breath for not being able to see the banshee.

They loaded up the Heistrom. Miranda looked around. "Where did the others go?!" Khazir leapt onto the ramp of the Heistrom after confirming the two had boarded. The Banshee circled around and used plasma repeaters on the Heistrom.

"They fell onto the level below." Chief said.

"-Oneia can handle most oppositions. She'll keep the group safe-" The drumbeat of the plasma repeaters against the ship hull was deafening. The Heistrom fired off missiles from guns on its engines. They homed in and obliterated the aggressor.

"We should go back there!" He shook his head.

"-Not possible. The level collapsed completely. There's a hole so even if we did try to enter, we'd fall the rest of the decks to our certain deaths." He smack the top of the Heistrom twice causing the vehicle to take off.

"Where're we headed?"

"-We can't leave the city by air… They're saying that those Covenant have the place blocked. Looks like they're drilling a hole into the halo… I just hope the military can get here on time." Miranda quickly spoke, slightly frantic.

"That doesn't answer my question. Where are we headed?" He looked at the commander.

"-To the police parliament building. It has the fastest land vehicles, but I hear it's been attacked by the aliens." Miranda had told Johnson to rally the troops for potential engagement but received radio silence. It was especially worrying that there were no signs of a failed transmission.

Silence was quickly broken after Khazir spoke. "-What're your names?"

"Commander Miranda Keyes." She said in her usual silvery voice. Master Chief spoke next.

"Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra 117." His voice bellowed through his speakers. He stared at the human for a bit longer than a second.

"-Anything easier to remember?"

"You can call me Chief." The thylamun nodded his head. These humans seemed to be more vibrant and focused in comparison to the Thylamuns. The only species that could rival such were the Niptuns, who were more social than any of the other two races.

"-Call me Khazir." At first the name confused the humans, as it sounded phonetically like something they'd say in english. But it could have been the work of his suit's translator system. Cortana was still trying to figure how in the world such a device worked. "-I was drafted recently."

Miranda could not distinguish how old he was by his face as the only thing she could see was his orange glowing irises, his nose and the upper part of his mouth. His voice was fairly light yet strong and rubbery and his skin looked rather tan, like that of a middle-eastern. She had to assume that he was drafted at at most twenty-five.

"You have any family here?" He nodded his head.

"-My wife… She's a scientist. Geologist and biologist. She was studying life samples last I checked." He closed his eyes, speaking indirectly. It was more of him voicing his thoughts. "-She was pregnant. Last we spoke, she said she was evacuating, but..." Miranda and Cortana thought his situation was pretty grim. He held the look of a man dreaded with morbid thoughts about covenant invasions, a look they had seen way too often. John felt indifferent. "-That ring… What's so special about it?" He changed the mood.

Cortana wanted to answer the question but the Chief had told her not to answer anything unless it's with other humans. Not until they feel comfortable enough. But being the slightly impulsive AI she was, she answered.

"It's a religious artifact to them." She answered. Khazir looked at the Chief.

"-An artificial intelligence, huh?" He deduced in a matter of seconds. "-Well then, what is special about this religious artifact?"

"The covenant believe it will ascend them to godhood. They revere the forerunners." Khazir cringed a little. It was much like how he cringed whenever religious groups of Czeq revered the now-dead Aei'ae.

"-What makes them gods? Nothing but bewilderment?"

"Precisely. It's really a galaxy wide doomsday device their 'gods' created..." He lolled back in his seat. He was not exactly an atheist, but people like these Forerunners, or Aei'ae really made him question the existence of such a higher power.

"-Why would they create such a weapon? Looks like they took themselves out too." Miranda answered the question.

"It's to kill the flood." She incorrectly answered. Khazir had no clue about what the flood was, but assumed it must have been some form of monster collective. His question was more rhetorical anyway.

"I need a bottle of alcohol..." He muttered as he thought of his wife. She was pregnant with his daughter. Time went on and his wrist projected a 3D map that showed they were right above their deployment area.

Khazir clicked on his suit's visor, standing up. He addressed the chief.

"-Sir. The area below is a hot zone and my side is losing. Get ready… You too, Commander."

Khazir had his rifle in a folded up heavy pistol form. The door began opening up, the heistrom opening fire on the Covenant. Its light weapons made it hard to kill the elites, shielded. Khazir dropped down from the ramp followed by the chief who was carrying Miranda. The green giant spoke.

"Stay back. My shields and armor are better than yours." Khazir looked at him a moment before nodding, and securing a defensive position. The chief did what he did best and slaughtered the aliens, the Heistrom and Khazir being very useful in providing cover fire.

An invisible elite pair attempted to spear Miranda with an energy sword but Khazir's suit caught one of them before it could. He used his hardlight shield to take the first hit. He slugged the alien in the stomach area hard, but the sangheili barely doubled over. It impaled him, causing Miranda to gasp, hefting the magnum on her hip and putting off a magazine into it. It's shields flared and broke.

The other elite went for the Commander who jumped out of the way skillfully switching to her SMG, getting off a few rounds.

To her surprise, he shoved the energy blade off of himself, the elite expecting him to be dead. He pulled free a knife and shoved it in the creature's mouth, blood coming forth from it. It let out a yelp in death. He was panting hard and looked back at Miranda, who was dancing with the elite.

He ran at it, blade in hand and slashed it dead in the throat. With precision and skill.

He clicked off his visor, allowing her to see his face. He coughed up blood and took a seat near her. "-Shit this hurts!" He exclaimed through gritted teeth. His body contorted violently as a sharp pain struck his chest. He projected more blood.

The Chief cleared out most of the hostiles and was about to race back to Miranda's position after Cortana had detected the camouflaged elites, but Khazir killed them first. He would never again trust Khazir with her… It seemed he was too unskilled.

"Stay with me. We can get through this." She was by his side. He laughed at what the Commander said.

"-Don't worry about me… Just needed a breather. I only have a burn through my heart. Nothing too special." Sarcasm was riddled in his words. He slowed his heart rate to a near stop and stood up, groaning some more. The Chief raced back after the area was clear for the moment. They needed to push inside the complex. He saw Khazir's wounds. A sword burn, clean, through the chest.

The wound had blood still trickling out of it, onto his plated armor. He along with his AI companion were amazed that he had managed to stay alive. They could hear him breathing harder than ever. He folded up his rifle into a heavy pistol as they progressed towards the building. "-Come on. We need to keep moving. Garage is nearby." His breaths were heaves.

"Wait. We need to find you some medical equipment." He shook his head.

"-I'm already fated dead. Follow me. Let me at least not fail this one goal."

He deployed a hardlight energy shield and moved into the building. Grunts and jackals occupied most of the inside, with the occasional brute and elite here or there. The brutes were easy for him to deal with as they always attempted to get close and charge him. Unbeknownst to the them, the Czeq races, save for the Niptuns and thylamun females, were significantly stronger than the average human, making light work of the underestimating neanderthals.

They progressed down a long corridor into a large hub room. Dozens of civilians lay dead, with one or two police officers in pools of blood. Clear as day evidence showed that the guards managed to put up a good fight, as they were the race that were slightly stronger than armorless spartans.

Dozens of dead covenant sprawled out across the floor as a form of postmortem retribution.

The Chief downed an invisible elite attempting to sneak up behind him from the direction of the garage. The others came out of their ambush spots. Khazir retreated to better protect Miranda, being hit more than a couple times with plasma bolts. His hardlight shield for the most part was effective, but the rounds still slipped by every now and then. His suit shields failed after the first five shots from plasma pistols.

An elite tossed a plasma grenade. "Grenade! Get down!" Chief bellowed, Khazir shoving Miranda away. Khazir saw the grenade but had nowhere to go and tanked the blast. His hardlight shield was broken yet again and he skid across the floor and into a wall. Miranda returned fire from an SMG, managing to down the Elite. He felt his mind slipping out of consciousness for just a moment, but he had to make sure the human commander was safe. The Chief stood over him, the three, Cortana, Chief, and Miranda, surprised that Khazir was still fighting.

He pushed himself off the ground, Miranda helping him up. His armor was charred with some shrapnel here and there. His communications system began static-ing which meant something very bad was happening. They used instantaneous, quantum signals sent through slipspace at the spire and if the aliens had managed to cause static, that meant that the aliens were raiding the center of the city, where most radio transmissions go to for slipspace conversion.

"-They're practically already at the ring… We should have fought them sooner." He walked up to a computer terminal, a projection appearing. He quickly navigated through it, and pressed a few buttons. Miranda walked up behind him to observe what he was doing. She could hear him heaving. He needed medical attention and fast. But they knew not where to look. And he wouldn't tell them. She thought he heard him coughing.

A holographic view of the building warped to life with red zones popping up on rooms. He swiped his thumb over a selection of dialog boxes that had popped up on the side of the projection.

He put his hand to the terminal, and it glowed for a split second before he removed it, raising his heavy pistol again. "-I released some-" A violent cough escaped his lips. His heart failed, causing him to cough up thick and heavy blood. "-sentinel drones to help secure an exit-" The cough persisted, violently.

"Khazir?!" Miranda asked. He fell to the side near the consoles and terminals he was just operating. Cortana spoke up through chief's speakers.

"-His vitals are low. His heart's failing." He clicked his visor off, taking in the air. He wondered what his wife would think if he died. How she would live life, how their daughter would grow… He sometimes wished for life eternal just to have those questions answered.

"-Get out of here… The Garage is just down this corridor. Vehicles should be easy- to use-" He coughed violently, his chest stinging. The airbags in his lungs bursted, making him asphyxiate.

"-He's gone…" Cortana said. Miranda stared at him for a moment before narrowing her eyes. The air of death was broken when they heard the laughter of a grunt, who had two plasma grenades armed on either side. Miranda in that moment, and other moments like that, truly saw the covenant as a sadist, group monsters embodying all that hell could throw up.

"Die demon!" The grunt said behind the mask. Miranda gunned down the creature, surprisingly beating the Chief to it.

"Covenant incoming!" Cortana said. The chief snapped to where they had just come from. Miranda followed the Chief's lead. They heard the elites' doing their "worts." Grunts and jackals ran out first, Miranda firing off her SMG, adding to the staccato sound of Chief's battle rifle.

Elites with thrust packs flew forth from the entrance. Miranda dove to cover, the Chief gunning at them. He opted to use his dual SMGs over his battle rifle, blitzing the alien fireteam. He was pelleted from all sides. His goal was to take them down before they could him.

Miranda hid behind the barricade, knowing her SMG along with her last magazine would not be enough to down an elite. She decided that she would be a burden to the chief if the elites found her position.

She heard the chief going to work.

The Spartan in question threw a plasma grenade from a dead elite onto his comrade. The device whined as gas spewed from it. The beast yelled loudly before being engulfed in a cloud of blue and purple.

The spartan snapped onto the nearest enemy, applying more bursts onto the unlucky foe. "Cortana! What's the fastest route out of here?" The AI showed a map to the right of the spartan's face.

"Straight along the path that Khazir died at. You'll get to that garage. Sentinel drones are on standby until you get there." The Chief nodded his head mentally, putting another burst into an elite. They did not stop coming, and at this rate, the chief would run out of ammunition, or worse, shielding.

He had to get Miranda out of here and out into the garage. The chief retreated to her position.

"Commander! We need to get out of here." Miranda peeked around the corner. A plasma bolt whizzed past her. She stood up from her cover. The Chief ran in front of her, soaking up the plasma shots headed her way.

He steadily moved out of the corridor, suppressing the elites, even after his shields had broke. When they were close enough, Miranda made a dive for Khazir's weapon, as her SMG had run out of ammo.

"Rest easy, Khazir..." She muttered, firing off beams of yellow direct energy at the pursuing elites. The chief threw another plasma grenade, stopping the elites in their paths, buying them some time.

The chief rounded the corner and entered the garage. Immediately, buzzing and whirring filled his ears. Small drones flew out from ports towards the top of the fairly open, medium-sized room. A wall began opening up and vehicles materialized into existence.

"Get into one of the vehicles, now!" Chief ordered his superior officer, the woman dashing into what was known by cortana to be named a monster. It was a fast assault vehicle, meant for grunt work, breaching frontlines.

It had a large mortar turret mounted on its backside and two light turret weapons. Upon entrance into the behemoth of a vehicle, it roared to life.

The master chief swung into the "cockpit" of the vehicle, elites running after them. Drones attacked the covenant squadron with lasers and ramming tactics. This forced the fireteam to retreat.

Their exit was still not secure however as a few covenant vehicles and more infantry stood in their path.

The controls were fairly intuitive and easy to learn. He moved his hand over a holoscreen that was by his right side, acting as a throttle control. The vehicle began to hover. More buttons popped up and a steering wheel was pieced together, in a fashion similar to the forerunners.

Miranda had the ability to use the laser turrets while the chief, the mortar turret. He shifted the flight mode to forward, allowing them to gently guide forward. The Wraiths started firing at him, he returning the fire with densely charged natural energy bombs. Cortana marveled at the weaponry as the mortar created non-traditional black holes when charging. The explosions it unleashed were massive and more than enough to destroy a wraith vehicle.

The turrets Miranda operated were also quite effective in taking out unshielded targets like enemy armor, grunts and other light troops.

"Covenant airstrike, incoming on our position! Shift on it, Chief!" Cortana demanded, the spartan swiping his finger forward. The occupants felt a slight change in horizontal gravity as the acceleration increased, pushing them into their seats.

The vehicle thrusted straight towards a wraith, and the chief not being used to the controls, rode straight into it. Luckily, the hovering capabilities of the craft allowed it to ramp off the wraith.

They leapt over a perimeter defense wall, drones rushing out of the garage behind them to contain the area. Chief's vehicle landed on the street. They heard explosions from where they came.

"Johnson and the rest of the platoon have been fairly radio silent…" Miranda said. Cortana had not even noticed this. Miranda attempted to connect with the sergeant again but to no avail.

Cortana had then tried and within some thirty seconds figured out the city was blocking most forms of radio communications, even Czeq's own. She had to give it to them.
The covenant would not even suspect that their comms were being blocked for a long time.

The city was fairly quiet, except for the distant sounds of gunfire and laser beams trading back and forth, as the Master Chief and Commander Keyes rode out and away towards the location of Alpha base.

November 2, 2552 AD

1648 Hours

Haz'kom, Second Plate, Ma'Chenema

Oneia stood in front of a shattered window. The humans had made it, but a few of her council had fallen to their apparent deaths.

The city was ablaze as covenant glassed the streets. The CAF had failed to account for countermeasures against such an attack like this for the city of Haz'kom. Her energy flared, arcing and dancing between her hands. She needed to get off the plate.

She knew of the imminent plate-wide threat that would occur once these Covenant burned their way towards the halo. And it would not be good at all.

The building shook again. She walked exceedingly close to the ledge of the building. One of her council spoke. "Admiral?" She chose not to answer.

She turned her attention to the council member. "Stay behind me… I feel hostile presence in the area." She heard gunfire in the room ahead. The ODSTs followed close behind as she moved forth a ball of natural energy condensed on her palm.

They had walked into a living room area. Peacekeepers and police officers were exchanging fire with covenant forces. One of the ODST brought his SMG up and put a few bullets down range. Oneia threw a condensed ball, impacting an alien hidden behind cover.

One of the peacekeepers, Oneia instantly recognized as Captain Mira, turned around. "Oneia!" He defused a plasma grenade that had landed close by and returned fire. "We're getting our shit pushed in. Their shields are good."

Oneia watched her company find cover and hide from the onslaught of plasma shots. Oneia formed a shield of natural energy, blocking the high heat, high velocity plasma bolts. A Jackal sniper attempted to skewer her from the side, but she fired a ball of natural energy, disintegrating the creature.

A few shots whizzed into her side, causing her to grit her teeth. Her eyes flared for a moment, the irises glowing a hot white. She collapsed her shield and fired off a dense beam of natural energy.

Any alien that stuck its head out had been disintegrated in her wrath. She panted as vapors rose from her palm. She relaxed her body, Mira looking back at her. He rarely got to see a demonstration of the full potential of natural energy.

A few covenant were confused as to what happened, and that cost them their lives. Peacekeepers and police pushed forth, killing the few elites and other covenant behind cover.

She strode towards the doorway, being knocked off balance by a bombing run from Banshee. They still had about a half dozen floors to descend.

There was a long hallway, glass and carbonic metals strewn all over the floor. It was a complete disaster, but as long as there was still power in the building, it would not matter much. She stepped onto a teleport pad at the end of the hall, others following her.

Oneia found herself at the bottom of the tower, in its lobby. Chairs were overturned and hovering equipment disabled and destroyed. Some of the front desk employees and workers were lying in their blood. Plasma burns and scorch marks riddled their bodies. One of them attempted to put up a fight as evidenced by the transformable SMG just by their side.

The smoke alarms were sounding, the automatic ventilation and fire systems disabled from the structural damage. She walked out of the burning building, a few peacekeepers, the ODST and her council still present.

Loud booms rocketed across the hazy green atmosphere. They looked up. A wave of relief coursed over he body. The council too. The troopers were bewildered by the odd, UNSC-sized ships in space. 'Finally, the military's here… Took them long enough.' She reached for her earpiece.

"CAF In'Chenema. This is admiral Oneia. Report." There was comms silence for a moment before her transmission was answered.

"-We read you loud and clear, Admiral." It was Ensign Haeyli Arte'nus. The admiral had met the young gal a couple times. If she kept up her performance as a Hunter agent, the admiral had no doubt she would become a general in a few dozen years. Maybe even the Paramount (Dictator-President of Czeq) if she tried hard enough.

"I'm requesting immediate extraction on my point. I've got some company on me. Landing zone is clear." More booms rocketed the surface of the planet. Dozens of CAF ships poured out of Idgara"thos (Inverted space or Warped Space).

"-Affirmative, Admiral. Estimated time, five minutes." The In'Chenema already started engaging on Covenant ships. The ODSTs watched as small point lights ejected from a bubble shield covering the entirety of the kilometer long beast.

The missiles homed in on dozens of different Covenant ships. The other CAF ships joined in, firing beams of orange and blue and more energy missiles.

Only a few ten thousand of the millions of point lights they shot were enough to break the shields of the covenant ships and then pellet the armor.

The UNSC frigate was caught in the middle of the CAF fleet, falling back and away as it was more than inadequate in terms of dealing with the current threat at hand. The newly arrived flotilla had to destroy the Covenant ships so they could target High Charity, the ship doing the most damage to the city core by a huge margin. All eight of its massive glassing cannons, burrowing and melting the surface of the shield world.

High Charity's anti-ship weapons were not to be taken lightly either though. They were enough to stop the Czeq Allied Forces from a forward assault on them.

The ODSTs were amazed. If they had the weapons the CAF had, no doubt, the war would be going in there favor. A combination of the CAF firepower plus the UNSC's comparatively massive fleet would prove effective in stopping the covenant forces.

Of course, they weren't even sure if they could call it a war. It was more 'fighting off extinction' with the covenant decimating their armies from space, those beams of purple and blue purifying a surface clean of all life. It was annihilation on another level. In these later years, they were managing much better now, but it still was clear as day that they were losing.

Another CAF ship had jumped in system, indicated by the ear-piercing boom heard across the surface of the planet. This ship was colored differently than the rest. Instead of White and highlighted in blue, it was dark gray and had highlights of orange.

The ship battlegroup broke forward upon entry of that last ship. Although smaller in comparison to majority of the ships, that ship was a flagship or some sort of high value vessel. It spearhead an assault towards High Charity.

A beam projected forth form its maw. The beam was stagnant around a few dozen kilometers away. A translucent sphere formed, about the size of a large asteroid, and a black hole too in reaction on the warship's behind. The part of the asteroid facing the covenant began materializing, stopping Covenant fire in its tracks.

The giant sphere rammed into covenant ships, completely obliterating them. The covenant did not know how to react as the battlegroup headed straight for High Charity. It was all happening so fast.

Oneia looked up in content. Those aliens were complete and utter asshats, engaging their planet while they had wronged them none. Her earpiece buzzed with static. Someone was attempting to contact her.

"Thi- Lieutenant Markus of the first Deployment! We'v- a con- ment breach. I rep- " The static was extremely bad. It sounded like they were in a firefight.

"Lieutenant! I'm getting a lot of static from your end!" Markus had attempted to repeat again, but the static was too much. His voice was indiscernible. He tried responding but she received nothing.

She thought on it for a moment. The amount of static was abnormal. The center tower where all communications went to had fallen to the covenant forces, but comms should have been good. A little delayed because of light speed, but still, comms should have been good. She recognized what was happening. The city's jammer system was activated. All communications, even their own, were being jammed. That was a direct violation of almost every protocol active.

Someone with knowledge of how the comms worked would have had to set the jammer off. She narrowed her eyes.

"-Someone is jamming my ground communications… Try to get into contact with your Commander." She addressed an ODST. A few moments later, the human responded

"Radio silence, ma'am." Oneia sighed. Out of moderate frustration, she condensed a ball of natural energy. She returned her composure.

"Hey… What's up with the fog?" One of the ODSTs asked to the other. Oneia's translator device allowed her to understand. She looked around. Small particles of a peach-green floated down from sky.

He tightened his grip. Installation 04… He gulped. Memories and flashbacks made real in this moment… "The flood..." He muttered. "These are flood spores, Sarge."

"-The flood?" Oneia asked. "-Spores?" She had an idea of where they were going. Hellfire… The name for that parasitic specimen. She knew of its dangers, and the disfigurement it caused. It literally corrupted the life energy of whatever it chose to infect. It made it impossible to cure them if they were infected. "-Those green parasites, yes?" The ODST nodded. "-They were contained..." Her eyes increased in intensity as she turned her attention to High Charity.

A containment breach. High Charity freed the damned parasites from their containment. The death toll from their infectivity must have been high, with all the scientists, guards, and other people down there.

As admiral of all Czeq Armed Police forces, she had to see what was going down at the city center. Information was vital, and she would have requested a reconnaissance from above but they were engaged in a fleet battle.

She pulled free a holopad from her hip and pressed a few buttons. A hologram of the city appeared. She pressed it and it turned red, red characters appearing over it. It read 'Quarantined' in English. Within the minute, the Paramount, aboard one of the ships contacted her. There was bad blood between him and her on a personal level, not even politics-wise.

"-Admiral Oneia. You've just activated Quarantine without reason and clearance..." His voice went to a low growl. "-Please remember that you are no longer the highes-" She cut him off.

"I have very good reason, and frankly, I could care less about clearance right now. Hundreds are dead in the streets and we have a containment breach."

"-...We will speak about this later. Report to my ship once the situation's secure."

She was drawn to the sound of stomping feet. It was Captain Mira, who was sheathing a bloodied knife. He had new plasma scorch marks on his armor and bits of flesh and organ on his suit.

"Ma'am. The area's not secure. Peacekeepers are reporting snipers and alien patrols all across the city." She nodded her head.

"My safety is currently not your concern. Make sure you get these people out of Haz'kom. A dropship's on its way." She turned herself towards the Spire of Jeun. "We have a containment breach… And I need to activate the containment systems, 'til then the city's under quarantine. No one out. Only military are allowed in."

"Don't you think the dropship's gonna' have issues leaving?"

"Don't worry about that. Military ships are much faster than patrol drones. Now then..." Her eyes reflected the amount of determination she had, increasing in intensity. "I'm off to the center of the city."

Urgency filled her veins as she pushed herself from the ground and into the air with gusts of natural energy before Mira could say anything.

November 2, 2552 AD

1756 Hours

Vengard Jungle, Second Plate, Ma'Chenema

A loud cackle was heard from behind a giant cigar. High calibre rounds tore through the air from a rotary machine gun, cutting down alien scum.

"Take that witcha', ya' bastards!" Johnson yelled as he lobbed a frag grenade from the turret. The Warthog climbed over the grunts who attempted to push the line of Alpha base Johnson had set up.

Johnson gunned them down until the Warthog's turret ran out of ammo. His maniacal attitude was shut down.

"Well that's a problem..." He muttered. They only had a few armored vehicles: six warthog vehicles and three scorpions. Air support was out of the picture with those new arrivals in space. Their pelicans had retreated back to the In Amber Clad, which was deep in the new flotilla.

They seemed to be allies under the enemy of my enemy principle. The sergeant wondered if they were insurrectionists at first but the sheer firepower of the new flotilla contradicted that thought. Unless, the insurrectionists managed to reverse engineer and manufacture forerunner-esque technology.

Johnson hopped off the back of the Warthog as it pulled into the base. Mortars were going off, raining upon the advancing Covenant forces. His defensive line was holding strong as the enemy numbers dwindled.

He was getting a bit anxious, he was not going to lie. Suspicion of this newly discovered military coalition had arisen. It had been around an hour and no word from the Commander or Chief. He tried contacting them a few times but he received radio silence. As if they were blocking him. Even the In Amber Clad had issues contacting the two. The ODSTs they were with were no better. He wanted to take a search party out to locate the two or at least the transponder in the Chief's armor if it turned out they were pushing daisies.

"Sarge, Covenant are being pushed back!" The sergeant nodded in content, looking in the direction of the city, Haz'kom.

"Good, but we may have some bigger issues at hand here… The Chief nor Miranda are responding." He stuck his giant cigar in his mouth, the sounds of war waging ahead of him. He pulled a shotgun off from an ammo crate, sliding in a few shotgun shells. He pumped the weapon, the satisfying sound of racking a shotgun gracing his ears.

"Gear up, soldier. I'm gonna' lead a small search and rescue squad within the city." He narrowed his eyes.

"We need to get our marines home..."

END OF CHAPTER 2. Didn't plan on this one taking so long. Next one should be faster, and I feel like I'm starting to get to the more juicier parts! Make sure to review what you think thus far and thank you for reading!

Part I :: Contact