UNSC Infinity
The bridge was in chaos, officers and crewmen rush from post to post, trying to bring the behemoth of a ship that the Infinity is back online.
"Sir, we lost contact with the ODSTs we dropped before we entered the shield world. The surface has gone dark!" An officer informed.
"I want an analysis done on the FTL drives and back-up generators! Why the hell aren't they responding?!" Captain Del Rio demanded as he looked at the holographic map in front of him.
"Commander Lasky." The captain said.
"Yes sir?" Thomas Lasky asked.
"Notify Commander Palmer and Castle Team, you are going out to explore what the hell the condition outside is. I don't want any surprises." Del Rio ordered.
"Right away sir." Lasky saluted and then he walked away from the bridge. Captain Del Rio turned around and walked towards the command window, from there he saw trees…thousands of trees, a jungle. Where have they crashed into?
"Sir, Commander Lasky, a group of SPARTANs and two Marine squads have left to their recon mission." An officer said.
"Good." Del Rio responded.
"We got something sir. Outside the main batteries, a vessel of unknown origin is scanning the ship and its being followed by several Covenant Storm CRS-class battlecruisers." Another crewman informed.
"Hell…" Del Rio said.
Jungle, Inside the Shield World…twenty minutes later
The Master Chief, the Avatar and her companions walked through the jungle, going over rocks and ducking under branches. The hike they took was a long one until the Chief suddenly stopped. Korra and the rest crouched when the Master Chief did.
"Stay low; recon sortie heading this way." Cortana informed.
"We're near the crash site." The super-soldier informed Korra and the rest. The Master Chief walked slowly towards a clearing that allowed him to see the crashed UNSC ship and the Didact's Cryptum floating next to it. Covenant Storm support troops flew over them, towards the ship.
"The ship looks intact." Cortana said.
"Something tells me that's only because the Didact wanted it that way." The Master Chief responded, seeing how the Didact hadn't reduced the gargantuan human space ship into nothing more than ashes.
Korra saw how the Star-Lord communicated with the Spirit, talking about the crashed Star-Lord ship and the Ancient not destroying it. This ancient, the Didact, seemed to not like the Star-Lords at all.
"This is Lasky to UNSC Infinity. We're up to our necks in bad guys down here. Does anyone read?" A familiar voice sounded through the comm channels.
"This is Sierra 117 of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn. We're on station, ready to assist." The Master Chief replied to the commander, acknowledging his call.
"Negative copy, sounded like you said 'Forward Unto Dawn'? Come again…" Lasky said before his voice was cut out.
"Signal's bouncing in and out; I can't clean it up." Cortana explained the interference.
"Light up their friend-or-foe tags; we're gonna need something to zero in on." The Master Chief said as he stood up firmly looking at the Cryptum scanning the UNSC ship.
The SPARTAN turned to look at his companions, the kids looked around wondering their surroundings, and he shook his head in an 'I can't believe I have to carry them along'. The only one seemed to be more focused was the girl that made first contact with him, the Avatar.
"Avatar, take this." The Chief said as he threw his M6H Magnum to the surprised Korra who catch it by the grip. "You'll need it if we split up in the jungle."
"T-Thanks." Korra said feeling honored that the Star-Lord had given her one of his holy weapons. Asami peeked over her shoulder to see the pistol.
"That's amazing…look at the craftsmanship of the weapon." Asami said in awe.
"We should go before any of the Beasts catches up with us." Mako said, when they turned to look at the Star-Lord, he had vanished. They saw his movement through the plants that led towards the dense jungle and they followed.
The Master Chief walked cautiously aiming his Assault Rifle in all directions before moving in a small jog and taking cover behind a tree. He looked… nothing, no movement or sleeping Grunts anywhere. Where is the Covenant?
The others got to where he was. "Chief, I got a scan of a friendly tag somewhere close by." Cortana said.
"Mark a NavPoint." The Chief responded and almost instantaneously an arrow appeared in his Head-Up Display signaling the location of the friendly tag. "We got a friendly."
"Finally, another Star-Lord we can talk to." Mako said.
"Be ready, he might be totally different from the Master Chief." Asami warned.
"Yeah, keep it cool." Korra added.
"Heh…cool." Bolin remarked as the followed the towering SPARTAN.
As they went on through the dense and green jungle, they heard what it sounded like screams. Of bones being cracked and guts being sliced. Once he heard this with his super-human hearing, the Master Chie rushed towards the screams in lightning speed, a blur to the eyes of Korra and the others.
As the Master Chief ran towards the falling IFF tag, a Promethean Crawler ambushed him. The metallic Forerunner dog tried bite Chief's visor, but the SPARTAN lifted the smaller defense AI and crushed it with his might. But once he killed the Crawler, dozens more seemed to replace it as they came out from the surrounding brushes and trees.
"They are coming out of the woodwork! Chief watch out!" Cortana warned the SPARTAN as he quickly saw his motion tracker and rolled out of the way. A Promethean Knight struck the grassy ground with his hard-light axe; it tried to get the Master Chief from the back. It roared as it took its axe out of the ground, revealing it's glowing orange human skull beneath its death mask.
The Master Chief began shooting the Crawlers that had assembled and were now aiding the Knight against the SPARTAN. Chief seemed to be out-numbered, his Assault Rifle not doing enough damaged to the Knight as multiple Crawlers jumped in the way.
The Knight then fired its weapon; a hard-light shot struck the Master Chief, making his energy shields glow. Thinking fast, the Master Chief took out a plasma grenade, obtained from an Elite's corpse, activated it and threw it at the Knight. But instead of sticking on its armor plating, a small bean grabbed it and threw back to him.
The plasma grenade exploded, taking out some Crawlers in the process. The Chief looked, one of those 'Watchers' appeared behind the Knight. That meant that grenades were useless until he took care of the flying defense AI.
The others arrived in time, once they saw the Knight and the flying Watcher behind it, giving it support, they fired. Korra didn't know how to work the pistol so when she tried to fire, nothing came out. Mako shot lightning at the Knight, while Bolin threw small boulders at the Watcher. Asami looked around for something useful and found on the ground a weapon of the Ancients. She grabbed it, and as if she knew about her whole life began to fire at the Knight with a hail of hard-light bullets.
"Hold on, how in the Spirits' names do you know how to work that thing!?" Korra yelled, asking Asami how she could control that ancient gun and she didn't know how to use this simpler pistol.
"I don't know, once a grabbed it I knew how to shoot it." Asami responded.
"Safety's on." The Master Chief said as he came out of cover and unleashed hell on the Promethean Knight by throwing a fragmentation grenade at it since the Watcher was too busy with Bolin throwing rocks at it.
"What?!" Korra asked.
"The little switch on the side of the handle, move it down." The Chief responded.
Korra looked down at the gun, there it was! She couldn't understand the writing on it, but she moved the switched down and heard a little release coming from within the weapon. Now she could fire it and make the Star-Lord proud.
The Promethean Knight's shields were down once one of Mako's lightning bolts got right on the chest, in all of its fury, the Knight roared highly while revealing its glowing skull. Korra aimed down, having seen Metalbending cops using guns similar to this one, and shot at the Promethean's skull. The recoil made Korra fall on her back while the 12.7x40mm bullet flew through the air and struck in target.
The Knight screamed in pain as its metal body fell on the floor and began to vanish. The Chief ended the Watcher as he shot at it as it fled. Mako and Bolin helped Korra up, her arm hurt a bit. "How…how do you resist the recoil from that thing?" Korra asked Asami as she held the Forerunner weapon with on hand.
"It's light, as if accustomed itself to my biology. I don't feel a thing when I fire it." Asami explained as she looked at the weapon on her hand, it was as majestic as it was deadly. "I'll call these weapons, Supressors, since they suppress recoil."
"Good job." Master Chief said as he joined the group. "All of you."
They smiled at the Master Chief whose helmet and visor hid his face but they thought that beneath it a god was smiling to them too. "They need our help." The Chief said as he focuses on the mission once more.
The nodded and followed. Once they arrive on the battlescene, they saw multiple dead bodies. The Covenant had been here alright, but they had been killed.
"What happened here? Where are the Star-Lords?" Korra asked the Chief as he walked towards a body hidden beneath the tall grass.
"IFF tag confirmed." Cortana said. "The tag IDs him as Jimenez, Paolo J."
"Then Lasky's still out there somewhere." The Chief responded.
Korra and Mako approached the Chief and looked at the body beneath their feet. "It's…its human." Korra said in disbelief.
It was a man, fully armored up, but his face was visible. He looked completely human; he looked like a Water Tribe man. "The Star-Lords…they are human." Mako said upon the revelation.
The Master Chief looked around, seeing the traces of scorched earth. The Prometheans had made the jump on both parties and took them out as they fought. The Marines and the Covenant soldiers hadn't seen them coming. "I want answers." Korra yelled at the Master Chief as she furiously walked towards him. The SPARTAN stood back up, towering over the Avatar.
"You lied! You are no Star-Lord! We are fighting one of the Ancients because of you and these people's fault!" Korra yelled at the super-soldier who looked at her quietly.
"You're right, I am no god." The Master Chief responded after what seemed to be an eternity, Asami and Bolin walked towards them after hearing what Korra said. "But the Didact isn't either."
"What are you talking about!? Haven't you seen what he can do!?" Korra yelled again.
"Yes we have." Cortana said through the Chief's speakers. "What you've been told for centuries has just been mythology, these Star-Lords are actually very much human like you and the Chief here…well more like you."
"Mythology!?" Mako yelled too in anger. "Now you question our believes, what's next? You are going to tell us that the Spirits are fake too when we have the Avatar here to proof their existence!?"
"We will talk about this later, but right now screaming won't get us anywhere while the Prometheans are hunting us." The Master Chief said to deaf ears. "If we don't stop the Didact now, here, he is going to kill everyone outside."
"Okay." Korra said as she tried to calm herself. "When we get to that 'space' ship of yours, we will talk about this." She knew better, she couldn't risk the safety of her world and her people. She was the Avatar after all.
The Master Chief nodded. "Gather any weapons and ammo you can take, there are going to be more Prometheans on our way to the Infinity." He said as he reloaded his Assault Rifle.
