Autumn and the fall
Our two commandeered Banshees screeched through the narrow valley, coming out over a wasteland. Covenant down below were fighting tooth and nail to survive against the Flood onslaught, and they weren't doing a very good job of it. It was all out war on Halo, with us in the middle. Other Banshees circled the area, bombarding the ground below. They didn't suspect us of anything, not yet at least. The Autumn had left a huge depression in the earth, creating something akin to a giant's footstep. It lay precariously over a large cliff, looking like a robotic-beached whale.
Looking over the ship once to see an entrance, we came across the empty lifeboat bays. Pulling in to land, Suddenly there was flash and a bang, as a Covenant Anti-Air wraith had decided to take exception to our unannounced arrival. Both hit, we knew we were about to crash. I heard Cortana yell out loud," You're not going to make it!" I pulled up quickly, just making a landing, but Chief's Banshee smashed below me. I dismounted quickly and looked down, very worried. I was calmed when an armored fist came up and over the side, as Chief pulled himself up.
I laughed, and asked him sarcastically," You did that on purpose didn't you?"
Too my surprise, he didn't miss a beat, replying." Maybe."
Cortana gave a short laugh, and then informed us of our objectives. " You two need to get to the bridge. " She continued on." From there, we can issue a destabilization of ships' fusion engines by using the Captain's implants. It definitely should be powerful enough to destroy the ring."
" That shouldn't be a huge problem." I commented, as Chief and I made our way into the airlock. The moment we stepped outside, a cacophony of red dots flashed over our motion sensors. Covenant or Flood, that question wasn't answered yet. Hooking to the left, a third answer presented itself to us. Sentinels. Laser beams cut through the air in a dangerous curve, as we weaved past them.
"Uh-oh," Cortana said as we both opened fire," looks like the Monitor knows where we are. The real question is, does he know what we're up to?"
A robot exploded, another one hit the floor, and I pivoted to the third as Chief focused on the fourth. I joked to Cortana." You do realize that he is technically after you only right?" She made no reply as machines three and four exploded- and we made our way down the hall. Two Sentinels appeared but were quickly reduced to scrap metal.
Continuing forward, we arrived at the end of the corridor. Following that, we took a right through an open maintenance hatch. It was very close quarters, so I didn't feel too comfortable of having to fight in such tight quarters. There was sadly, no other choice. Ducking through, we found ourselves in a giant maze.
"Cortana, bring up the ship schematics, lets get this over with quick." I requested over the COM. Bringing it up; I saw our location encased within a carapace of passages, hallways, and corridors. Pinpointing the most direct route, we continued on it before spotting a hatch set right in front of us. It creaked open, and like a horror movie, combat forms charged from the opening. Firing a quick burst from my Battle Rifle to suppress them, we slowly fell back. Chief threw a grenade, and we both took an inappropriate amount of satisfaction at watching the explosions.
Coming through the hatch, we entered into a blood-spattered corridor. No bodies, which showed that the Flood must have assimilated all of them. An arms locker situated on our side refilled our dry ammo pouches, and we moved on.
Two more Sentinels peered around a corner up front, and we snapped to the targets, leaving them both smoking and out of commission in the blink of an eye. Cortana theorized that these Sentinels weren't looking for us, but they were actually assigned to eradicating the Flood on the ship. It made sense, but her theory didn't exactly help us fight the Sentinels, Flood and Covenant, while we made our ways through a series of passageways. Coming into a three-way fight, we hopped into the fray focusing targets together and bringing them down with lethal precision. Sooner or later they all fell down to our combined firepower. We finally made it to the ship's heavily damaged mess hall, where a small army of Elites and Grunts waited to kill us.
Throwing two grenades, we blew some of them to pieces. It seemed like déjà vu to be fighting here again. An Elite threw a grenade at us, just missing as it whizzed past my shoulder. I charged forward, slamming into it. It took the better part of one clip before it slammed to the deck, dead.
A short distance now to the bridge, several Elites clad in golden and silver armor unsheathed energy swords and carbines as they charged us. As one, we'd have difficulty, but as two people it became much easier to focus down the Elites. Chief would burst its shields down, and I would deliver the killing blow with my Battle Rifle. They're shields were strong as they swiped and shot at both of us. But our shields would absorb the ones we weren't agile or lucky enough to dodge. Sooner or later they all lay on the bridge, dead.
I was about to continue over when an overcharged plasma bolt hit me in the back, obliterating my shields. As I turned, the Grunt assailant fired another shot, which would kill me. Chief threw himself in front of the bolt, and then crushed its head with his fist. He turned back, nodded and we continued.
He slid Cortana's chip into the slot, and she appeared on the control panel. Everywhere around us were burned-out equipment, bloodstained decks, and smashed viewports. She looked around, unhappily. " I leave home for just a bit, and look at what happens." She brought a hand up to her forehead, as if in intense concentration. " This shouldn't take very long- there, that should give us enough time to make it to the lifeboat, and put some distance between us and Halo before detonation."
Unfortunately, the next voice we'd both heard belonged to 343 guilty spark. " I'm afraid that what you are about to do is out of the question."
Cortana and I both groaned." Oh shit." Chief instead just grunted in annoyance. We drew our weapons immediately, but there were no sign of them. It didn't stop the Monitor from continuously babbling in our ears. The AI was excruciatingly annoying, due to his high-pitched voice and attitude. " This is madness! How could you imbue your warships ancilla with such a wealth of knowledge? Wouldn't you worry that it might be captured?"
Cortana frowned. " He's in my data arrays-a local tap." I was more confused at his use of a word I'd never heard before, 'ancilla'. No time to worry about that now though, as the Monitor was on board, trying his best to stop the self-destruct sequence. He succeeded.
"Why do you continue to fight me, Reclaimer?" Spark questioned. " You cannot win! Give me the construct, and I will endeavor to make your death relatively painless-"
His words abruptly stopped, and Cortana gave a short laugh." I still have control over your comm channels."
" Where is he?" Chief asked.
"I'm detecting taps throughout the ship," Cortana replied. " The sentinels must be doing his dirty work. As for the light bulb, he's in Engineering. He must be trying to take the core off-line. Even if I could get the countdown restarted… I wouldn't know what else to do."
We both cocked our head in surprise; it was a first to see that the incredibly smart AI was at a loss. Suddenly, Chief stiffened.
"What is it?" Cortana and I questioned in unison.
" How much firepower would we need to crack the engine shields?"
" A well-placed grenade would be enough, why do you-" Cortana began, and then stopped as she saw us both tossing grenades up in the air.
Her eyes widened, and she nodded." Don't know how I didn't think of that. Let's go."
We turned and started to leave, when suddenly, in unison, the machines attacked. I used the grenade in my hand to destroy the bulk of them, setting the fuse timer to a second. Chief put down the rest with controlled bursts, as we fought our way quickly out of the bridge. We made our way back through the maze of passageways, and ran into a group of flood. Hitting the two sides, I blew their legs apart, rendering the danger of their melee attack null. With this out of the way, I focused on their heads, blowing them apart. Chief pushed forward with his shotgun turning them all into little pieces. Entering the Cryo chamber, we popped open a steel hatch to have our blood run cold. Two hunters turned, and rumbled.
"Close the hatch!" Chief yelled, with a sense of urgency. I slammed the button, and it closed, but it wasn't going to close in time. It smashed one hunter, and even it wasn't strong enough to stop a giant steel door crushing it. With a sickening crack, it died. Behind it, its partner roared in outrage. We didn't need to worry, as the door was now closed, albeit with bits of Hunter stuck to it.
"Well we're not going that way." I muttered, as we turned backwards, and continued moving. Passing back into the mess hall, even more blood was spattered across the bulkheads; bodies sprawled in every imaginable way. Sparks flying out from junction boxes, and several fires, but thankfully due to the metal floor, it was more or less contained.
Hearing the sound of automatic weapons' fire somewhere up ahead. Passing the Cryo chamber, we came across a full array of Flood forms battling a clutch of Sentinels. We shouldered our weapons, and fired. Pandemonium raged around the Pillar of Autumn; as there was a frenzy of plasma bolts, laser beams, and bullets. Once most of them had been neutralized, and the last small flood infection form had been stomped, we were able to continue to the control room. It was close quarters, and Chief drew his shotgun, and I grabbed his Assault Rifle. Infection forms came in swarms from the Control room, and every time we put down one, two more came to take its place. Our backs to the wall, I crouched on the floor, and we were both taking them out as fast as we could. Luckily enough there was a lull in the action, and we continued on. Chief moved forwards, and suddenly a Flood infection form dropped onto Chiefs' back. Punching a dent in Chiefs helmet. Fortunately, before it could do any damage, I grabbed it, and popped it with my fist.
" You good?" I looked at Chief. He nodded in thanks.
Reaching the engine room finally, we heard a familiar humming. I'd started to back away when Cortana said," Crap! The Monitor disabled all command access. We can't restart the countdown. We need to detonate the fusion reactors manually. It takes quite a while, but I'll walk you through the procedures."
" Well, that's fantastic, as I popped the first reactor open, and an infection form flew into my faceplate, before being wrenched off and busted. After deactivating the first fusion reactor, I threw an excellent grenade into the hatch, destroying the first one. Two sentinels appeared, and fired their beams into our chests. Taking them down, we continued on, as there were two more to go.
XXxXxXxXxX
The final grenade exploded, as the shaft we were standing on shook in what seemed like pain. "That did it! The engines will go critical! We don't have much time, we need to get off the ship in ten minutes or we'll die!" We need to get to the third deck elevator. It should take us to a service corridor which runs the length of the ship."
Hopping onto the third floor, we hit the button for the lift, enjoying the short lull in action. It seemed empty, but suddenly an Elite in the lift itself opened fire at us. We hit the sides for cover. He was trying to blow our cover when I rolled a grenade down and into the lift. He'd just blown up Chief's cover when the explosion blew him out of his seat, and killed him.
" Where the hell did that guy come from?" I asked.
" No idea, just bring the lift back up." Chief said.
She brought the lift back up. We had no choice but to step onto the platform, and let it slowly carry us forward.
"Cortana to Echo 419, come in Echo 419." She patched a line to Foehammer, who hopefully was still able to get us out of here.
" Roger that Cortana," Foehammer said over the COM system," I read you loud and clear."
Suddenly, the lift we were on shook very violently, as we stumbled and nearly fell.
"Echo 419 to Cortana, what's going on down there? It's getting very noisy!" Foehammer asked, concerned.
It shook again as the AI said," Negative, negative! We have a wildcat destabilization of the ship's fusion core. The engines must have sustained more damage than we thought. We have five minutes before the fusion drives detonate, get out, NOW!"
That sounded like brilliant advice. We ran into a bay full of warthogs, and I hopped into the turret, and Chief drove. A countdown timer appeared on our HUD, and it was going down fast. We drove quickly, hooking left and right to avoid explosions and falling debris, and I took out anything in our way. An Elite was sucked down under the tires, and the vehicle ran over it like a bumper. Everywhere around us were the Flood or Covenant or Sentinels. A laser beam melted the turret I was using to slag, and Chief passed me his assault rifle with one hand, allowing me to provide cover as we still continued to move. Charging up the length of a huge wall, we jumped a huge gap.
As we landed, I yelled at Chief amidst the madness. " Did you know there was a drop there?"
"No." He yelled back. I said nothing, amazed at our luck as he put the pedal to the metal to pick up some time.
We passed a open space, and Cortana yelled," Stop! Foehammer can pick us up here! Cortana to Echo 419, requesting extraction now!"
Like clockwork, she approached from the left. Suddenly a Banshee came from the sides, slamming into the pelican, causing them both to burst into orange flames.
"Pull up!" I shouted, hoping she could make it, but it was too late. She disappeared from sight, and a huge explosion was heard under us. No response came. She'd helped us countless times, and I felt a deep sense of regret for the lives that were lost on this godforsaken ring.
Cortana tapped into the ship's leftover systems." There's a Longsword in launch bay seven. If we gun it we'll make it!"
He burnt rubber as Chief put his foot to the gas, as we went full speed past gaps, enemies, and anything standing in our way. Pushing the Warthog up a ramp, we suddenly found ourselves falling three levels. The warthog hit the floor hard, and its wheels popped out. It wasn't going anywhere. Luckily for us, it was right in front of us. We charged forward, gunning an Elite down who had the misfortune of trying to stop us. Dropping our weapons, we ran as fast as we could, the timer read a minute.
We got onto the Longsword, and I quickly accessed the engines, taking the control as we punched our way out of the Pillar of Autumn, and into space.
XXxXxXxXxX
The engine was critical, so I shut it down to conserve its energy. I flicked some switches to conserve energy, and stood with Chief staring at Halo's hull, sheared into pieces like a glass tiara.
It seemed so small from here, all the death, destruction and terror that happened in that world for the past few days. And yet it felt so large.
Cortana quietly said, as if to justify all of our actions on the ring." We did what we had to do; we saved the world, The Flood, The Covenant, everything. It's over."
Chief pulled of his helmet, and I did the same as we clanked fists.
"It's not over, it's just beginning." He said.
He was right.
(A/N: So, ending to Halo 1, moving to first strike, but ill take a couple days break from writing, as I've just started the IB program. Hope you liked it, and ill keep writing as long as you guys keep reading.)