Sorry this took a while to get up. Since its not canon I had to think a lot about how I was going to write it. Enjoy.

As soon as he finished his summary, a channel opening blinked open on his HUD. Accessing it, he saw it was from ONI, of all people, although it made a bit of sense, considering Sword was an ONI location.

"SPARTAN-B312, this is Admiral Parangosky, Head of ONI. As you may be wondering why I have contacted you at a seemingly inconvenient time, let me explain briefly."

Six considered this for a moment, before acknowledging the admiral with a short "Of course ma'am."

The line was silent for an instant, before Parangosky continued.

"A well known fact about Corvette-Class Covenant vessels is that they don't have shields, much to our fortune. As you can see, the vessel attacking SWORD is a corvette. What we need you to do is infiltrate that ship, extract any information you can, find out whatever the Covenant are planning on Reach, and finally… blow the hell out of it for us would you Lieutenant?"

"Understood ma'am, it'll be done. Six out."

Well… as if today wasn't hard enough already. Six turned to Kat and Emile, who were on the Warthog already, watching him.

Re-opening the COM with them, Six explained his situation, before telling them to go complete what had been his previous objective.

Emile's parting words were "Watch yourself, newbie; we don't need to replace another 6 so soon."

And the 'hog pulled away, roaring and bouncing west, towards Airview Base, where the first objective marker was set.

To say Carter was mad was an understatement. He was downright furious with ONI and Parangosky at that moment, for sending his newest team member on a lone wolf mission, onto a Covenant Naval Vessel, alone! Granted, it wasn't an Assault Carrier, but the fact remained that it was Six against an invasion force.

Although he was betting on Six…

-=[Sergeant William Sanders, Charlie Company (retired)]=-

"Reach was the worst place to be at the time. Covies everywhere. And the worst part was, we thought it was a battle we could win."

Six was currently moving towards SWORD's airfield, which ironically, was located below Airview Base. He could have caught a ride with Emile and Kat, but they were long gone, and if he strained his ears, he could faintly catch the sounds of gunfire from the west. That still didn't solve his dilemma of how to get to the airfield, let alone the damn Corvette, which was stationary around 500 feet above it, content to just bomb the hell out of SWORDS defences and send its numerous troops to engage the human resistance.

He trudged along the rock-strewn road, heading towards the sounds of chaos that were emanating from the direction of his destination. Cresting a small rise, he saw the flaming remains of a Ghost Swift Attack Vehicle and some Covenant infantry littering the ground. Guessing this must have been the way Kat and Emile had come, he continued straight instead of following the curve of the road, which led to a cliff, down to the level ground surrounding the airfield.

Scaling a cliff down to the airfield wasn't easy, as stray rockets; bullets and plasma constantly impacted the ground around him, oftentimes causing him to slide several feet before maintaining a more stable purchase. Lithely leaping down onto level ground, Six straightened and hefted his DMR before advancing slowly; knowing stealth was key in getting onto that Corvette.

Taking cover behind a boulder that had numerous plasma marks strewn over it, Six took the opportunity to scan the terrain, noting the positions of the dogfights that were currently occurring. The Covenant were winning the majority of these, with the fighting prowess of the Sangheili giving them the edge over the UNSC Marines, although they had defeated a number of groups. Even so, it would still be difficult to sneak by.

Six didn't consider himself particularly lucky, but even he had to admit that he had hit the jackpot when he spotted the outline of a camouflaged Elite directly in front of him, facing the opposite direction he was approaching from. A quick knife buried deep into its throat left him with the job of figuring out how to disengage the active camouflage unit from the Sangheili and operate it.

It was simple to remove and attach it to his MJOLNIR, but activating it was an entirely different matter. Fiddling with it for a time, Six eventually noticed a catch located at the side of the device, that when pressed, made the object thrum with energy and envelope him in camouflage. Hopefully all that attentive Sangheili could notice now was a ripple of disjointed air moving swiftly towards the gravity lift of the Corvette.

A screaming Marine was thrown bodily in front of Six, causing him to slide to a swift halt from his dead man's sprint across the flat and war torn terrain. Turning, he uppercutted the following Elite directly in the jaw, knocking it flat on its back, stunned. A final stomp on its head finished it. The Marine was looking wildly around for his saviour, murmuring thanks and prayers under his breath. The name tag on his left breast read Private William Sanders, and below that, in smaller writing; Charlie Company, the company that was stationed at Sword.

Six, knowing he couldn't afford to be spotted by anyone, grudgingly picked up his run again, almost halfway to the waypoint he had set under the Corvette.

After a few minutes without anymore incident, Six arrived at the gravity lift situated on the Corvette's 'stomach'. After spending a few minutes studying the lift, and watching several Covenant be beamed up and down, he thought he had a considerable idea of how to get up. Rising from his crouch, he moved towards the lift.

Six stepped into the gravity lift with anticipation. Nothing happened for a moment; before he felt his boots leave the ground. Looking up, he saw the underbelly of the Covenant vessel draw closer and closer, before it entirely blocked out the sky. Then, as suddenly as it began, he was in the ship, face to face with two Hunters. He stiffened and drew breath sharply, thanking his lucky stars that he had left the camouflage on.

Slowly sneaking around behind the pair of monstrous aliens, Six recalled what he needed to do. Parangosky had said that he was to find out what the Covenant were doing on Reach, and destroy the ship. Both of those objectives would have to be done in the bridge, which in most Covenant ships was located in the middle of the superstructure. He had entered the rear hangar, which meant he needed to go right, towards the large glowing doors on the opposite side of the bay.

The doors hissed open gently, and without pause he strode through, determined to reach the bridge as quickly as possible. It wasn't easy, constant enemy patrols streamed by, going in all directions. Because of all these delays, Six was forced to take things extremely slowly, sneaking with deliberateness around Grunts, Elites, Jackals, and another few pairs of Hunters. Hunters were the only Covenant species that Six had any type of fear for, due to one of his earliest memories. A memory he was not keen to reflect on. And as such, he was the most careful around these behemoths.

In due time though, he found a number of high-ranking elites walking through a bigger and more decorated door, which led him to assume that this was the bridge of the Corvette. It was obvious that they were high ranking because they wore Zealot and Field Marshal armour configurations and the overly large head pieces of an accomplished Sangheili. Making a mental note in his head to upload all known schematics of Covenant vessels to his neural cortex, he followed them stealthily, taking note of the positions of each and every alien species in the room, while advancing to where a long panel of controls were placed against a wall. He was moving towards these particular controls because of the throne like structure that sat in front of them, with a Sangheili lounging in it, barking orders at the other officers in the room.

Taking it slow, he carefully moved around behind the Sangheili, and towards the consoles, where he was met by a multitude of glowing buttons that he had no idea how to operate. Sticking a download port into a random part, Six hit 'download all files' on the screen and was met with possibly the quickest download he had ever gotten on a mission. Now he was met with the problem of removing the ship. It wasn't as if he could just press every button in sight, for all he knew he could cause the Corvette to loose one of its plasma torpedos at SWORD. There was one thing he could do however...

Reaching into his utility bag, he pulled out a square of C4 and wedged it in underneath the controls. Not his finest work, but explosions will do there stuff. No matter how badly rigged. With that done, Six stuck a remote detonator to it and flicked the activation switch. He had another idea on how to destroy the Corvette, but it would be a lot harder.

First, he needed to find the reactors that powered the Corvette. From the same schematics he had seen, Six could guess that they would be located at the rear, which coincidentally was where the thrust boost from the engines they powered were visible. That being said, getting to the back of the ship was once again no easy task. The same patrols and squads he had encountered before had almost tripled in quantity and frequency, and Six's stealth skills were put to the test again and again, oftentimes resulting in him dragging a Grunt that had been to nosy for its own good by the neck and out of sight. There was also a dead radio silence inside the Covenant ship, so Six had no idea what was happening outside the never ending purple maze of xenophobic hell.

Which was why Six nearly jumped a metre into the air when it crackled to life and Mendicant Bias started speaking to him through it in his ancient voice.

"Greetings Reclaimer. We meet once more."

Six waited for a moment before replying, checking the corridor he was in was void of anything but him and purple.

"Compliments Mendicant Bias. Is there a reason your contacting me at this point in time?"

"Reclaimer, for both of our benefits I believe it would be prudent for you to just refer to me as Mendicant. And the purpose I am contacting you for is a simple one. I am here to help you in your mission."

Six considered this for a moment, before nodding in agreement, willing to admit he could use a hand here.

"Fine Mendicant, so, what have you got to offer me that will assist this operation?"

Mendicant chuckled in a low rumbling tone.

"Patience Reclaimer, you will get to your goals no faster by rushing. The reactors, which you seek, are to the east. Once there I will give you more instructions."

"Alright then, will do, contact will be resumed when at location. Just one more thing. Is the Field Marshal that was carrying your chip here or are you in the hands of some other Sangheili?"

This time the AI took a minute to reply.

"Correct, I am in the hands of a General Classed Sangheili by the name of Ruk Vatamus. He is in charge of the ground forces currently breaking into your SWORD Base. He intends to use me to decrypt your files and learn your secrets so the Covenant can discover the location of a holy artefact, one of which is located here, on humanity's Planet Reach."

It was almost too much for the SPARTAN III to take in. So the Covenant wanted these holy artefacts that were scattered around the galaxy, presumably because they were holy. One of them was on Reach, which is why Six guessed haphazardly that they hadn't started glassing immediately. And to top it off, this was being told to him by an AI that was made by a race that vanished a hundred thousand years ago.

"Ok, tell me about the holy artefact stuff later, and I'll see if I can get Vatamus. But right now I need to finish the mission I was given Mendicant." Six glanced around, making sure no Covenant had decided to come along the corridor.

"Of course, Reclaimer," replied Mendicant smoothly.

"The reactors to the Corvette, as I said before, can be found directly east. Once there I will give you the information you need to disable them."

"Alright, Six out."

Now knowing where he was going, Six headed back into the stream of Covenant, weaving in and out of their squads. Once he came back across the hangar, he knew he was headed in the right direction. The same Hunter pair that he had almost walked into on arrival were still there, standing guard over the rest of the hangar.

Crossing the massive room, he entered a door on the opposite side this time, which opened into another corridor that was perfectly identical to the one on the other side of the hangar. If Six had to hazard a guess, he would say that the corridors were ones that ran the length of the vessel, which was convenient to him because he could just piggy back along it until he found where his destination was located.

Keeping his footsteps as light as possible and centre of balance perfectly stable, Six made his way down the corridor, which was teaming with Covenant - when he said perfectly identical, he meant it. Roughly five minutes late he came across the engine room, where he made his way to a secluded corner and waited for Mendicant to open contact again, which he thought was inevitable, since the AI was probably monitoring all of his movements.

He was proven right when his radio crackled and the AI began speaking.

"I see you found the engines Reclaimer. Excellent. Now, if you turn to where you entered, you will see a door to the far right of that wall. Go through it and you will find the reactor chamber. Disable them, and the ship loses all power to everything; anti-gravity generators, engines, electrical equipment and whatever else is powered via those reactors."

Six nodded, realising the opportunity that destroying the reactors presented. Seeing the door that Mendicant had pointed out, he crossed to it and found it was locked. He tried opening it using force and the result was that the door did not budge a single bit. Standing back, Six had to resist the urge to scratch his chin in puzzlement, an action that he still retained from his childhood before induction to the SPARTAN III Program.

Fortunately, Mendicant stepped in before any more valuable time passed.

"I shall open the door Reclaimer, just a second."

Six stood for a moment, watching the door intently, before it glowed purple suddenly and slid back, showing a smaller room with two reactors.

Coming up to them, Mendicant began telling him exactly what to do on the glowing console that was connected to the two reactors. The console had 4 circular buttons that were arrayed in a straight line across the board.

"Reclaimer, press the buttons in this precise order; Far left, middle right, middle left, far right, middle left. This will disable the reactors. A warning however; the deactivation of the reactors will send alarms to the bridge. Be prepared to fight."

"I understand."

Six pushed the buttons in the order he had been told, and almost instantly heard the wail of sirens blaring throughout the ship. Thinking this was as good a time to set off that C-4 as any, Six hit the detonation switch, feeling the shudder run through the ship only seconds later.

Ten seconds later, Mendicant urgently burst through onto his radio.

"Reclaimer, there has been a complication. The software programming the reactor shutdown requires ten minutes to be irreversible. You need to stay here and hold off the Covenant until that happens."

There were complications in every assignment...

"Understood Mendicant. Can you give me a read on how many bogies are coming?"

"Unfortunately not Reclaimer, I am limited in what I can for now, since I am not actually with you."

Damn.

"I understand, Six out."

All he could do now was wait for the Covenant to come. Setting a timer for nine minutes and thirty seconds on his HUD, Six checked the arms and ammo he had available.

A Designated Marksman's Rifle with 10 spare clips, thanks to the added ammunition pouches on his new armour chest piece.

An MA-15 Assault Rifle with 300 spare rounds, not including the clip currently loaded.

Two .42 Magnum side arms that were attached to the magnetic holsters on his hips.

And finally, an SMG on his thigh holster. In other words, he was armed practically to the teeth. It should be enough to hold off the Covenant that would swarm into the bottleneck. If it filled up to the point of it getting a bit much, he could easily toss a frag grenade or two into the middle of the mayhem, switch things up a little bit. But for now, he could only wait.

It wasn't for long. The chatter of Grunts could be heard almost instantly, along with the barking commands of Elites. Jackal shields could be heard clashing against each other in the narrow corridor outside the door. Six took position in one of the far corners, his DMR aimed directly at the door.

There was a pause for a moment, before the door slid open with a soft hiss. A squad of Grunts stood in the doorway, peering around, looking for any source of danger. They would never know exactly how much they were in however, because in almost exactly the same instance, one's head was blown all over the place in a grotesque explosion by a DMR bullet. Three more followed in the next two seconds. The final one shivered and screamed before turning to run, before another bullet sheared clear through the hose that fed the packs methane to the Grunts mask, sending it cartwheeling towards the rest of the waiting Covenant. Its detonation didn't kill anything, but sent a few Jackals scrambling backwards in shock.

The Sangheili growled and gestured the rest forward. They did, reluctantly and more DMR rounds that issued from Six's rifle mowed all of them down. He had to reload though, and when he did, the Covies made a break for it, moving quickly into the room and behind cover. Some of them anyway. A surprised Elite fell in a four shot combo that removed it's personal shields in three and emptied its head in the last. Eight minutes left on the timer.

Six then switched his DMR to his Assault Rifle, opening fire abruptly and mowing down three Grunts. A group of Jackals locked shields in a phalanx formation and advanced forward slowly, but surely. Not wanting to waste precious ammunition on taking down the shielding, Six lobbed a grenade at their feet, where it detonated and blew apart the formation, leaving four of the Kig-Yar dead and another two fatally injured.

Another Elite, a Spec-Ops class this time, roared in anger and charged at the SPARTAN recklessly, while Six just sprayed its shields relentlessly until they popped just as the Sangheili reached him. Quickly stepping to the side, the Elite rushed past him, unable to stop. Striking as quickly as a snake, Six twisted and slammed his fist into the back of the Sangheili's neck, breaking it and condemning him to a slow death.

Reloading quickly, Six continued spraying rounds into the Covenant offensive. But for every Covie he slew, it seemed two more took said Covenant's place. The timer read five minutes left. He could hold them off, he had to. Drawing his Magnums, he fired into the crowd, scoring a headshot for every bullet he fired. But even he, the legendary lone wolf was losing ground. The enemy was returning fire en masse now, draining his shields until a klaxon sounded. Ducking behind a reactor casing, he waited for them to recharge before popping back up, firing on anything he laid eyes on.

The Elites were hanging back, probably waiting until he was low on ammo before moving in for the kill. Heck, he even spotted a Zealot back there, gripping an Energy Sword and a Plasma Repeater.

Deciding to change things up on the Covenant, he scooped up a few plasma grenades that had fallen from dead Covenant corpses, primed them, then threw them as hard as he could into the group, causing chaos and decimating their numbers. It was then that the Elites made their move.

A group of three charged, shooting while sprinting towards him with their plasma rifles. He cut one of them down, but could not remove the other before they were upon him, swinging there weapons like clubs, hoping to knock him around. Ducking under the first blow, he drew his combat knife and slammed it into one of the Sangheili's legs, just above the knee joint, causing it to scream in pain and fury, before it collapsed, the leg unable to take its weight.

This enraged its comrade, who roared at the ceiling before he redoubled his efforts. The Sangheili was obviously an excellent hand to hand fighter, but his anger put him off. Six dodged and ducked around the attacks, fending them off as best he could. The Elite swung a little too far on a right hook, opening himself up to Six, who kicked the Elite savagely in the leg, causing it to stumble backwards a step, allowing the SPARTAN to leap up and embed the knife deep into its frontal lobe, causing an instant death.

Stomping quickly on the other Sangheili to subdue it, he turned to the other Elites who were quickly becoming as enraged as their fallen brethren, the Zealot particularly. This was worrying to him, because he had no wish to get in a sword fight in this extremely enclosed area.

Fortunately, aforementioned Elite didn't attack, but stayed still growling in anger. The others though, had no such inhibitions and charged, flattening a Grunt that got into their way. Six was ready for them this time, and pegged a plasma grenade at the middle Elite, sticking it and killing it, blowing out the shields of the other two Sangheili and severely burning them, but they were put out of their misery by two Magnum shots.

The clock on his HUD hit zero, and Mendicant instantly contacted him.

"Reclaimer, it is done, now move if you want to escape with your life!"

Six took these words to heart and readied himself, looking at the Zealot blocking his way, frantically trying to come up with a way to get past it. His eye caught the grenade pocket on the Sangheili's armour configuration, and he grasped his last frag grenade, a plan forming in his mind. A stupid plan that if it didn't work would get him killed for sure, or if it did work would get him past the murderous alien with a sword that could cut through anything.

Six ran, bowling through Grunts and Jackals alike, not caring if his shields took hits, just aiming for the Elite standing in front of him, baring a snarl upon its jowls.

The Zealot drew back his sword and swung, timing it so that it would catch Six as he got into range, and for all intents and purposes it looked like it was game over, until the SPARTAN pulled his rabbit out of a helmet.

Six dived, curling into a somersault, passing underneath the pronged ends of the sword, that he could hear crackling centimetres over him, time seemed to slow, as he came midway through the flip. As he did so, he pulled the ring off of the frag grenade in his hand, and instantaneously deposited it in the grenade sack he had spotted earlier, before continuing the flip. Time sped up again as he rose, continued running from the confused Zealot, before halting momentarily to watch the show that was going to occur any second –

BOOOOOOOOOM!

The sound of multiple grenades going off at once was almost likened to the sound of a Spartan Laser, but with a lot more force. Even from fifteen metres away, Six was blasted clean off his feet and onto his back, sliding for a few metres, where he lay still, stunned.

The Zealot had been obliterated, turned to cinders, and then the cinders had been vaporised. And to top it off, the ceiling cracked and caved in, trapping the remaining Covenant in with the reactors.

Six groaned and got to his knees, trying to clear the blur from his eyes. Everywhere was flickering with purple fire, due to the reactors imminent meltdown and his 'little' stunt, reducing the once spick and span vessel to a smouldering wreck in the sky.

He had to escape from this death-trap, but how? The gravity lift. Maybe he could jump down. Getting to his feet, Six staggered for a moment before picking up speed, going as fast as he was able towards the hangar. Reaching it in record time, he moved towards the lift, before an ear-splitting roar caused him to dive sideways for his life as a Hunter thundered past.

You're joking!?

Evidently not, as a green glow built up around a second Hunter's cannon, causing him to career to his feet and sidestep the poison green beam of death.

He needed to get out before the Corvette blew its top, but the Hunters were blocking the gravity lift which he had planned to escape.

Mulling it over in his mind hurriedly, he tried to think of a solution in which to kill the Hunters. He had one plasma grenade left, which he could use to...

Pulling out the grenade, Six primed it and tossed it as accurately as he could towards the closest Hunter. The grenade's aim was true, and slipped past the Hunter's warding shield, sticking it directly in the gap between its helmet and neck armour, right in amidst the writhing worms that it was made of.

The grenade exploded, destroying the Hunters head, neck and most of its shoulder from the inside out, causing a river of orange blood to spurt from the openings and gaps in its armour.

The Hunter fell, causing the ground to shudder. Its bond mate screamed in absolute rage and let loose a shot into the ceiling, which was already severely weakened by the infrastructure of the Corvette tearing asunder. A groaning, ominous sound was heard, and a chunk of ceiling directly above the Hunter fell, flattening it and covering the gravity lift completely, blocking his route of escape. Muffled roars from under the jagged tangle of metal showed the Hunter was still very much alive but trapped.

Six was turning his head, searching for any possible route of escape. Beneath his feet, the Corvette groaned as the pressure of the reactors became too much, and it began to fall apart. Behind him, a massive hole opened in the side of the vessel, providing Six with his answer and an escape.

He didn't need any encouragement as Mendicant roared, "Jump!" in his helmet, as he ran and flung himself out the hole, plummeting to the ground.

He twisted as he fell the 500 metres to the ground. The Corvette must have gained height since his entrance. But the thing was ruined, smoking and splintered. Then suddenly, the entire ship was engulfed in a ball of blue energy exploding outwards, pulsing into him and sending him even faster towards the ground at a 40 degree vector. All he could do was lock his armour and wait. Suddenly, he felt something smash into his back, and shrieking sounds of metal rendered asunder, before everything went black.

Carter watched the screens as Six did the work in the Corvette. The rest of Noble had been here as well, but he had sent them to fend off the Covenant ground troops that had regrouped and were attempting to make an entrance into Sword. He was sure they would all have heard the massive explosion and seen the light that the Corvette made as it detonated. Six had smashed through SWORD Base's top level, and had come to a stop on a balcony on the opposite side of the direction the Corvette had attacked from. That must have been one violent explosion.

"Why do they always jump?" He thought to himself as he sent a few marines to check on Six, before standing up to follow.

It didn't matter he supposed, it was a mission done once again, and Six was still alive. An alert on his HUD showed a communication line wanting to speak to him. Entering it, he was greeted with the words;

"Greetings Noble 1, this is Dr Halsey..."

Hi everyone! Sorry it took so long to get this out, but I made it quite lengthy to make up for that. Hope you all enjoyed Six's solo through the ship, since I enjoyed writing it. Also, I won't be including a sneak peek of chapter seven since I want to see how it goes without one for a chapter. I still want to here about the idea I put out last chapter in one of the A/N's so please give me some feedback on that as well. :) As always, R&R and enjoy.