Chapter 10: Point of no return
Soell System, Installation 04
Halycon-Class Light Cruiser "UNSC Pillar of Autumn"
September 22; 2552
This was it. Ruby knew that, once the ring blew up, there would be no way home. They'd be stuck in another dimension, in a war that wasn't theirs. But it had to be done. The risk of the Flood leaving Halo was too big. No one would be safe, not even Remnant. This was the only way.
During the last days, she had seen spaceships, interstellar parasites, Aliens of all forms and sizes, and a completely new human civilization. One on the brink of extinction. As huntress, she swore to protect humanity, something she'd do even here. However, she also saw death. How people died because of mistakes she made, or just because their enemies were too strong. Something she would not repeat. Not under her control.
But she had also seen the hope the Humans got when they saw them. How they were welcomed, and celebrated at Alpha Base. Maybe this was all a weird turn of destiny.
Even if it was, she'd be damned if Humanity was wiped out under her watch.
"Ruby." She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked towards Penny. "Look."
The robot pointed to the screen which showed the outside of the Spirit. There was a giant object in the ground. The trench the crash created was filled with water, and the damage of the previous battle was clearly visible on the grey and green hull.
It was the Pillar of Autumn.
She had to admit, the human ships didn't look as fancy and menacing as the Covenant ships, but she was sure that they still had a lot of firepower. Instead of a sleak, almost organical design, the ship was a big, grey block.
Behind the ship, the sun was rising. "Nature's so clichè." Nora stated, gaining a chuckle from everyone.
The Chief flew the Spirit next to one of the airlocks, where he opened the troop bays. Everyone jumped out, while the Spartan turn the ship around, and jumped out of the airlock before it crashed down.
"We need to go to the bridge." Cortana explained. "From there, we can use the Captain's neural implants to initiate an overload of the ship's fusion engines. The explosion should damage enough systems below it to destroy the ring."
"Before we go." Jaune interrupted. "Let me call the others real quick." He pressed on his radio. "Bailey? Pyrrha? Here's Jaune. Are you okay?"
There was no response for a while, which got him a bit worried. Luckily, it eventually came through. "Jaune? Here's Pyrrha. We're at the Longsword. Are you on the Autumn?"
"Yes. We're gonna tell you when we set the reactors to explode. Hold tight."
"I don't want to sound demanding, but please be quick." Bailey answered. "We've got Covenant, Flood and Spark's robots coming in. Hell, we even got a Nevermore a couple of hours ago."
"Don't worry. We'll try to make it quick." Ruby responded.
"Hey, shouldn't we try to make sure that Snowhammer is okay too?" Nora suggested. From the outside, they were able to hear a faint growling.
"Good idea." Ruby activated her radio again. "Foehammer? Ar-"
"Can you please tell Nora that it is FOEHAMMER?"
"She heard that?" Blake and John asked in shock.
"Yeah, sorry. Are you in position?"
"Ready to get you whenever you need it. Just call me."
"Understood. Ruby out." She shut off her comm, and turned towards the others. "Okay, let's blow this ring to hell."
"Uhm, where do we need to go?" Blake asked.
Now that she mentioned it, Ruby had no idea. Sure, this ship was human, but they have never been on it. And all the walls looked the same too. Grey, green or beige, made out of metal, and featureless. The ground was made out of hard metal, just like the ceiling. If anything, the inner parts of the ship seemed cold. Lifeless. Then again, it crashed into a giant ring after two heated battles, so maybe that did a number on it.
"We have to go there." Penny said, and pointed towards a small door in the wall. An arrow on the ground indentified it as a maintenance tunnel.
"How do you know that?" Nora asked.
"Cortana gave me the schematics for the Autumn." Penny explained.
They shrugged, and entered the dark tunnels. It was very narrow, and they had problems with seeing their path. Except for Blake, thanks to her Faunus heritage. Luckily, even now, the Chief had the solution. Two lamps on the side of his helmet started to glow.
As they arrived at an open hatch, leading onto a lower level, Infection forms climbed up, but died in a hailof bullets.
They jumped down, and saw a group of Sentinels fighting the Flood. The group waited for the fight to be over, and took out the last two Sentinels with a grenade. As they walked over the debris, Nora noticed a piece that looked relatively intact, and picked it up. Judging by the shape of the object, it was some sort of weapon.
Suddenly, Flood came around the corner at the end of the hallway, and Nora activated the device. A beam of energy cut through the air, taking down the Flood.
"Oh, that's nice." Nora said, and decided to keep the beam for now.
They kept fighting the Flood through the next hallways, until they arrived at the next big one. Two hunters were patroulling the area, but were taken out easily.
Nora went around a corner, looking at a screen. Orginally, she saw the side of a Medikit stickin out of the corner, and she wanted to have one with her, just in case. After she took it, Nora noticed the screen. It showed different kinds of food. Intrigued, she studied the menu. To her surprise, a lot of the dishes and drinks were familiar. Hotdogs, Burgers, Soda. It seemed like some food carried over even in other dimensions.
"Nora!" Jaune yelled.
"Coming!" She walked away, following the others into the mess hall. Ruby, Penny and John were already taking care of the few Covenant soldiers inside. She approached the Spartan. "Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Make it quick." John replied, and took out a Grunt with his Assault Rifle.
"If we have time later on, can I get a Coffee?"
"No way. Ren specifically said that you're not allowed any caffeine."
Nora clenched her fists. "Dammit Ren. Just one time." She readied her hammer, and buried one of the Grunts under it.
After the mess hall was clear, they moved on into the next hallway. It led directly to a big room. "The bridge. We made it. Let's get to work." Cortana said. They took out the three Grunts inside, and looked around. Monitors were hanging along the walls, some intact, some broken. In the front of the room was one big screen, with a terminal in front. Big windows allowed a view into the surrounding desert. A small ladder was leading to another post, which looked like it broke off during the crash, leaving nothing but a gaping abyss.
Penny handed Masterchief the implants, and he inserted them into his helmet. "I need you to upload me into the control systems. The terminal is located next to the main view screen."
The Spartan obliged, and put Cortana's chip into the terminal. Her avatar appeared above the machine. "I leave home for a few days, and look what happens. This won't take long." She started to concentrate.
Suddenly, the screen came back to life, and showed a message, telling them that the Self-destruct sequence was initiated. "There. That should give us enough time to get picked up by Foehammer, and get some distance to Halo before it goes to hell."
The comms came to life too, and a cheery, familiar voice was heard. "I'm afraid this is out of the question, really."
Ruby glenched her fists and teeth. "Spark."
"Ridiculous! That you would imbue a warship's AI with such an wealth of knowledge! Weren't your worried it might be captured? Or destroyed?"
Blake and Ruby started to look around, searching for the Monitor. "He's in my data arrays. A local tap!" Cortana said, and both looked at her again.
"You can't imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all of our lost time! Human history, is it? Fascinating. Even if it lacks information about your new abilities. Oh, how I will enjoy every moment of its categorization! And to think that you would destroy this Installation, as well as this record... I am shocked. Almost too shocked for words."
"Come here, and I will make you too shocked for words." Nora replied.
A sound was heard, and the screen showed that the Self-destruct sequence was stopped. "He stopped the sequence." Cortana explained.
"Why do you continue to fight us, Reclaimer? You cannot win! Give us the construct, and I will endeavor to make your deaths relatively painless, and-" Spark was interrupted, as Cortana shut him off.
"At least I have control over the Comm channels."
"Thanks for that." Jaune said.
"Where's Spark?" Penny wanted to know.
"I'm detecting taps throughout the ship. Sentinels, most likely. As for the Monitor... He's in Engineering. He must have be trying to take the core offline! Even if I could get the countdown restarted... I don't know what to do."
"How much does it need to destroy the engines?" Nora asked.
"Not much. A well-placed grenade, or a powerful energy shock. Why?"
The Chief took a grenade, and started to toss it up and down. Next to him, Nora held up her hand, and let electric sparks fly between her fingers. Cortana nodded.
"Okay, we can do this."
As she said this, five Sentinels flew up outside the window, and attacked. They took cover behind screens and debris. Nora picked up one of the Fuel Rod Guns dropped by the dead Grunts, and shot. The explosion took out two Sentinels. The Chief took a Plasma Pistol, and opened fire. Before long, they managed to take out the Sentinels.
"Now that that's taken care of." Jaune spoke up. "Where do we have to go?"
"Let's head to the cryo chamber. We should be able to get to the engine room through there." Cortana and Penny said in unison, and looked at each other.
"Come on." Ruby commented, and they left the bridge, heading for the cryo chamber.
Along the way, they took out everything that opposed them. Covenant, Flood, Sentinels. Eventually, they reached the chamber. Even here, Sentinels were fighting the Flood. After taking out all enemies on the lower levels, they went up a ladder, going into the control room. Here, Ruby noticed two screens: A blue one, and a red one.
Both showed basically the same thing: The vitals of whoever was in the cryo chamber. One was labelled with 'Master Chief UNSC Petty Officer John-117'. The other one, which was red, showed the image of a Spartan, but was titled 'UNSC Petty Officer Linda-058'.
"Chief?" She yelled, and the Spartan came to her.
"What is it?" John asked, reloading his Assault Rifle.
"Who's Linda?"
He looked to the ground. "A good friend. And soldier. She was on the Autumn, heavily wounded. I think her cryopod was discarded during the battle."
Ruby waited a moment to comprehend this. It was the first time the Chief showed another emotion than surprise. He was sad and worried.
It didn't hold long though, as an explosion came from the hallway ahead. The Flood had broken in, and everyone got in position. After clearing out the attackers, they moved on. The group fought throught the next batch of maintenance tunnels, until they arrived at a larger one, where Sentinels and Covenant were fighting each other.
After the battle was over, they looked around. Two smaller hallways led to the engine room, while an arrow on the ground indicated an armory to their right. They decided that they could use the extra ammo, and went into the armory. There were ARs, Shotguns and Rocket Launchers hanging at the walls, with ammo and weapons scattered over the ground. They took everything they could carry, and left, going into the Engine room. Before they coul leave though, Penny noticed the backdoor opening, and used one of her swordlasers to destroy the entrance into the armory, so no enemy could follow them.
The engine room was gigantic. A big object, probably the engine, rested in the middle, cutting the room in two. On both sides, ways led up to the top, and six exhaust pipes led into the engine, three on each side. Above them, a scaffolding spanned across the room.
Sadly, the room wasn't devoid of enemies. A couple of Infection forms were crawling along the bottom, while groups of Sentinels were swarming around in the air. "So, how is this gonna work?" Ruby asked.
"First, we need to pull back the exhaust couplings. That will expose a shaft that leads to the primary fusion drive core."
"And where can we pull them back?" Nora wondered.
"There are four terminals at the top level. I'd suggest that one of us stays up there and activates them, while the others destroy the cores."
"I like that plan. Let's go, team!" Ruby said.
"Not so fast!" They looked up, and saw Spark flying towards them. "I think you understand that I can't let you do that."
"Fuck off." Nora replied angry.
"What? You're nothing more than children! You think you can make such an important and consequential decision?"
Ruby looked at the two arguing, and had an idea. Maybe the Sentinels would be distracted if Spark was. She told her idea to John, and he agreed. Everyone except fo Ruby left, and she approached the Monitor. "Hey, Spark. Can I ask you something?"
"Why would I allow that?" He replied angry. Even when he was furious, a floating ball wasn't very intimidating.
"Well, I have my doubts about our plan. I'd like to know more. So, how long were you here?"
The AI looked at the ground, as if it was sad. "100.000 years. Alone."
That actually took he Ruby surprise. She didn't expect Halo to be that old. "That long?"
"Yes. My creators built these rings to destroy the Flood. A last hope to safe the galaxy. I'm happy to see that the Librarian's plan worked out as planned."
"Is the Librarian your creator?" Ruby asked, genuinly intrigued.
"I don't know. My knowledge of the time back then is locked away from me."
"Oh, and is there anything you'd like to have right now?" If Ruby had to be honest, she didn't really know how to keep the conversation going.
"A whole platoon of Prometheans would be nice. Then I could finally get rid of you. Then again, he'd be here too. And he could end up destroying this Installation by himself, and I'd have no way to stop him."
The conversation ended, as a loud explosion shook the room. Both looked up, and saw one of the locks open. The reactor was burning. Spark looked back at Ruby. "You tricked me!" For a moment, his eyes became a bright red instead of blue. "You'll pay for that!"
Ruby used the chance, and took off her jacket. She threw it on Spark, obstructing his view. "Hey, what's going on?"
She jumped on him, and used the Monitor as a launch pad to jump up, only to use her semblance to get on top and join the others.
"How's it going?"
"Don't worry, friend." Penny said, and smiled. "Nora is already taking care of the second reactor."
Ruby looked down, and saw Nora standing on the lock. Electricity was flowing between her fingers, and before she comprehended what was going on, Nora shot electricity at the exposed reactor. It exploded, and fire started to burn on the reactor. "Second one down!" Nora yelled. She sounded tired, and Ruby guessed that the move took a lot of energy.
Nora started to make her way up to them, as another explosion shook the room. "Third Generator is destroyed." Jaune said over the radio.
"Nice." Penny said.
"Not so fast." Spark flew up in front of them. "This is absolutely unacceptable. I cannot, and will not let you destroy this Installation!" With that, a group of Sentinels entered the room, and started to shoot at them. Luckily, Penny and Nora took the out quickly. While Nora used a rocket she picked up in the armory, Penny used the guns inside her swords. Ruby noticed that the shots were getting weaker, which meant that Pennys power supply got small. The whole day of constant fighting probably took a huge toll on her.
"Uhm, guys?" Blake said, and pointed down. The doors leading into the generator room were broken down, and Grimm were pouring in.
"Oh, give me a break!" Spark yelled annoyed.
"What are they doing here?" Nora asked.
"I guess the Covenant is panicing." Jaune explained, as he joined them. "And Spark's anger certainly doesn't help."
Another, larger explosion caused the whole ship to shake. They looked through the hallway leading to the other side of the room, and saw the Chief closing in. "We did it." He said.
"NO!" Spark screamed.
"Hey, tennisball!" Nora said, and aimed her SPNKR at Spark. She shot, and the explosion threw the Monitor across the room, against a wall. He wasn't damaged, but had to take a moment to recover.
"I don't want to rush anyone." Cortana mentioned. "But we only have fifteen minutes to get out of here, so how about we start moving?"
"Right." Ruby said, and ran off. The others followed, going through a door into the maintenance tunnels.
"Is the reactor blowing up?" Weiss asked over the radio.
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"Well, shit's exploding, the Covenant are in panic, and the ship shook."
"Right. Stay put until we give the signal."
"Understood. Good luck, Ruby."
"You too, Weiss." With that, Ruby shut off the transmission.
After a couple of turns, they arrived at a locked door, which instantly exploded. Behind it was the entrance to a large elevator. Said platform came down, and was occupied by three Grunts, and one Elite in a Shade.
"So, it's finally time." The Sangheili said.
"Oh god, please not now." Ruby facepalmed.
"I, Zuka 'Zamamee, will claim the heads of you demons, restore my honor, and get riches and praises from the Prophets!" The Elite yelled.
"Okay, dude, listen." Ruby began. "This whole thing is exploding, so I'd suggest you just get out of here."
"Not until I took y-"
"Man, we don't have time for this bullshit." Nora said, and jumped behind him.
She hit the Elite with her hammer, and he flew towards the Chief, how catched him. Zuka was looking at John's helmet, as said Spartan rammed his knife into the Elite's throat, killing him. Chief's helmet was the last thing Zuka ever saw.
The Grunts ran away in panic, as the Spartan threw the dead Sangheili to the side. Everyone stepped on the elevator. The doors shut, as explosions went off behind them. The whole ship was falling apart. The elevator started to move up.
"Cortana to Echo 419: come in, Echo 419!"
"Roger, Cortana. I read you, 5 by 5."
"The Pillar of Autumn's engines are going critical, Foe Hammer! Request immediate extraction! Approach the crash site and be ready to pick us up at external access Junction 4C as soon as you get my signal."
"Affirmative. Echo 419 going on station." There was a short silence, until Foehammer called again. "Echo 419 to Cortana. Things are gettin' noisy down there. Everything okay?"
"Negative, negative! We have a wildcat destabilization of of the ship's fusion drive core. The engines must have sustained more damage than we thought!" Cortana answered. The Elevator finally reached the top.
"Analyzing. We have six minutes before the fusion drives detonate. We need to evac now!"
They went into the room, and saw a couple of Warthogs standing in their stations. They walked up to one without a turret, but with more seats than usual. Perfect for getting out of here. The Chief jumped into the driver seat, while Ruby rode Shotgun. The rest went into the backseats.
John started the jeep, and left the station. The tunnels of the ship were luckily broad enough for the Hog, even if the Flood, Grimm and Covenant forces were still fighting everywhere.
"Activating final countdown timer." Cortana mentioned, and a timer appeared on the dashboard of the Warthog. "When it reaches zero, the engines will detonate. The explosion will generate a temperature of almost 100 million degrees. We don't wanna be here when it blows."
The Warthog jumped over gaps, drove up rams, and from time to time splattered an enemy. They had to admit, the Chief was an excellent driver, even if they had to hold tight to not fall off.
Around them, walls and structures exploded, sometimes killing off enemies. Eventually, they reached the end of the tunnels, and the Warthog jumped of a ledge, landing on the point where Foehammer was supposed to get them. The junction was between two parts of the ship, and a fall of the ledge would mean a fall to the death, even for Ruby. They couldn't even fully make out the ground. "Cortana to Echo 419! Request extraction now, on the double!"
"Affirmative, Cortana. Foe Hammer inbound." They saw her Pelican coming around the corner. However, one of the wings was burning, and two giant Nevermores were following the Pelican. Their claws scratched along the top of the dropship, ripping off armor plating. "I'm hit! Mayday! Mayday!" She yelled over the comms. "Airfoil structures have been shot to hell! I can't hold her! I can't hold her!"
Everyone went quiet, as the Pelican flew below the junction, and crashed into the side of the Autumn. Burning debris fell down into the abyss. "Foehammer!" Ruby yelled, and ran up to the ledge. "She's... She's gone."
Jaune pulled her back. "Ruby, we have to get out of here!"
Ruby stepped back, and yelled at her friend. "She's dead, Jaune!"
"And we will be too, in approximetly three minutes." Nora said after she took a look at the dashboard.
Ruby nodded silently, and went back into the Warthog. "What now?"
"We join the others." The Chief started the Warthog again, and drove back inside the ship. "This way will lead straight to them."
"Weiss! Bailey!" Jaune shouted over the comms. "Are you still there?"
"Yes, we're getting ready to start." Weiss answered. "Yang just finished to load up the last supplies."
"Change of plans!" Jaune replied. "We're gonna come to you, and fly off together."
"What? Why?"
"We'll explain later! Get the Longsword ready, and start as soon as we're in there." Blake said.
"Okay. Good luck."
With that, the comms shut off, and they jumped down into another tunnel. It led through a narrow path, which eventually led into the hangar. A barricade stopped the jeep, and everyone jumped out. The Longsword was in front of them, and Weiss and Pyrrha were already waving. They ran as fast as possible to get there, even using their semblances or weapons when possible, to get there, and ran into the jet before the bay closed.
"Everyone on board?" Bailey asked.
"Yes! Get us out of here!" Yang yelled.
Bailey started the jet, and it slid out of the hangar, before the Corporal steered it up.
Soell System
Longsword fighter
September 22; 2552
Everyone gathered at the windows, as they left Halo's atmosphere. They could see the whole ring, and the oceans on it. Some spots were covered in a brown color, and they guessed that the Flood took over those places.
Suddenly, a bright light was visible. The ring at this section broke apart.
"Bailey, shut down the engines. We could need them later." Cortana said.
"On it, Ma'am." The Corporal shut down the engines, and then joined the others.
The ring broke apart more and more, and the pieces drifted off in every direction. They saw entire mountains and forests being launched into space, oceans freezing as soon as they left the atmosphere.
One of the fragments of the ring looked like it disappeared completely, from one second to the other.
"Wow." Ruby muttered.
"Did anyone else make it?" John asked.
"Scanning." Cortana paused. "Just... dust and echoes. We're all that's left."
The Spartan shook his head, and sat down in the pilot seat. Everyone else looked at the ground in sorrow. "Johnson. Silva. McKay. Keyes. Foehammer. They're all dead." Ruby said, and sat down, tears going down her cheeks.
Yang sat down next to her. "We didn't have a choice." She put a hand on her sisters shoulder.
"She's right." Cortana said. "We did what we had to do. For Earth. An entire Covenant armada obliterated. And the Flood."
"I'm going to miss Showhammer." Nora muttered.
"Man, your ass is so haunted." Yang said to her, before turning back to Ruby. "We've got a whole new world ahead of us, Rubes."
The Longsword shook, as the shockwave from the explosion hit them. Some of the supplies stored at the walls, including weapons, ammo, food and drinks, fell over and rolled across the cold metal floor.
"Ruby..." Penny said. "Look."
She stood up, and went up to Penny, who was pointing outside. "We're in space." Behind the nearby Gas giant, the local sun, Soell, was coming out. Colorful nebulas and millions of stars were visible everywhere.
Ruby put on a small smile, and wiped her tears away. "Right. We've got a whole galaxy to explore." Everyone stepped up to her, looking outside. "And I think we only just begun."
And there it is, Halo CE is done. This chapter is released a bit earlier then normal, since I have summertime now, which means a lot of freetime.
Now for something I wanted to do for quite some time: Say my opinion about the campaign that was just done. Since I had to play every level multiple times, I think it's a good idea, and something that I'll do at the end of every game.
My favorite level of CE is Keyes, while my least favorite is, obviously, the Library. I have to admit, I don't really like the campaign of CE, at least when compared to other Halos. After the Library, the first levels just got reversed, and Flood added. Most of the places look the same, and the long hallways can get annoying. However, story-wise, it's great.(I don't even going to mention the OP-Magnum)
With that done, now to some replies:
rocketmce: For your first question: Not right now, though I have some ideas how HW2 could work into it all. To your second question: No, they won't, except for the last two, wimply because the Covenant wouldn't let anyone from Remnant work with them, meaning that it would just be a written version of the levels, without any twist to it.
dauntingnebula7: For the most part, yes. They'll hijack the Ascendant Justice, but then things will change up a bit.
Edrap: I have no idea what you mean for half of the two reviews. (Partially because I don't speak Spanish).
minecraft93: To make it short: I'm hyped.
red october700: Yes, it seems to be confirmed. At least it's said everywhere on the Halopedia. Still, I couldn't find someone say it in the game, and I'm not sure about the book. However, it could be that it's said in the manual, or some other form of media. As for Silva, I think that took place after the level, since the Chief needed a couple of hours to fly from the Truth to the Autumn.
And yes, Neo would be even more interesting from the height.
Well, the thirsty Grunt didn't appaer now, but he (and the other special Grunts) will make an appearance later on. As for my favorite mission, I already said that.
Yes, I already answered it. They won't become Spartan IVs, since there Aura gets in the way of the surgeries, except for some basic ones like neural implants, and they are too important for the UNSC and ONI to risk.
About RvB: Yeah, that could work. I also have the headcanon that Odd One Out from Halo: Legends is an anime inside of the Halo universe, so that could be combined. There's a chapter coming up where the teens have some freetime, and decide to look at the human culture, so it could fit in there perfectly.
A fan: Yes, Penny can indeed turn into a plane. Just google Chapter 14 of the Manga.
Halo belongs to 343 Industries and Microsoft; RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth.