Disclaimer: I don't own halo, all OCs are mine

chapter 27: apocalypse rising

August 19, 2572

Location: Earth orbit, McKinley station- UNSC Yamato

Sitting in one of the docking slips of the station was the largest ship ever fielded by the UNSC. The Yamato was almost three kilometers long and in the shape of a rough diamond with the aft tapered back to give it a more triangular appearance from a far. She was armed with two massive MAC guns on either side, built directly into the space frame for maximum protection; all you could see were the two small holes in the hull at the end of each barrel. Archer missiles, heavy deck guns and 50 mm autocanons lined the hull in other places. While technically classified as a battleship, everyone in the fleet knew she was a dreadnought due to the rather disproportionate classification system when it came to types of ships. Cruisers had the firepower and strength of battleships, destroyers functioned more like cruisers, and most frigates were basically corvettes built around a MAC gun; most notably the iconic Sinoviet-class line of frigates. The disproportion came from the days where the Navy essentially lied to the bean counters to get funds for construction.

The Yamato had been ordered and laid down in the early 2520s, the lead ship of her class ended up being the only one in service. In 2524 the higher ups in the Navy ordered construction stopped due to the diversion of funds to an ONI project that would eventually become the Spartan-II program. When the disastrous battle at Harvest happened, the Navy pulled the incomplete Yamato out of mothballs and completed the ship. However the need for as many ships as possible prevented the construction of her planned sister ship as it would have drained considerable resources. The Yamato had managed to survive the entire war due to the reluctance of the UNSC to use her in large engagements, and the ingenuity of her long time commanding officer.

On the bridge, the morning shift had just taken their stations; the ship was in the middle of a crew rotation and shore leave so there weren't that may officers present. The XO, Commander Eric Brannigan, had just arrived on the bridge to supervise the morning watch.

"Commander, I have something you need to see," the operations officer, Lieutenant Williams said to Brannigan.

"What is it?" The XO asked as he set his coffee down on the plotting board and walked to the Lieutenant's station.

"Sir, we've got a communications blackout over half of Earth space. It happened just a few minutes ago."

"Apollo, give me a readout of this blackout zone."

On the plotting board behind him, a holographic representation of Earth appeared with one whole side highlighted in red.

"A few home fleet battlegroups were supposed to be continuing exercises started yesterday, this could be part of a drill. Or innie sabotage," Brannigan mused.

"Innie's?" Williams asked.

"Insurrectionists, Lieutenant. Don't they teach you any history at OCS?"

"Well yes, sir. But the insurrection was officially stopped over ten years ago, besides why sabotage something on Earth rather than UNSC facilities on a colony?"

"Sends us a message kid, although most innie groups are gone or just a dozen people hiding in a basement planing grandiose bombings that they can't actually pull off."

"Commander, I believe this is neither an exercise or sabotage by rebel forces. The image of a man appeared on the plotting board dressed in a toga that barely covered his body; Apollo the AI for the Yamato. "The jamming extends not only in space but to the surface of Earth itself, already we have lost contact with the entire Oceania region as well as eastern Asia. We also have no contact with western North America and satellites in that region are not responding to commands."

Brannigan was starting to become worried, "do we have any ships that can investigate this?"

"I do not believe that is a viable option Commander, as any ship that enters the affected area may be susceptible to the same jamming. Luna's rotation has brought half of the moon into the jamming field, we may be able to use the stellar observatories on the surface to look at the affected area."

"Do it, and contact fleet command and let them know whats going on up here," Brannigan ordered.

"I'm afraid Sydney falls under the affected area, but I will relay this to the flagship of the home fleet and the Admiral."

"That won't be necessary, Apollo."

Strolling up the stairs from the main entrance and into the bridge was the Yamato longtime commanding officer, Rear Admiral Asraf Horito; a man who's exploits while few, rivaled that of Preston Cole. He was of Vietnamese descent, and was often confused for being Japanese due to the Yamato namesake. He ascended to the captaincy of the battleship during the fall of Eridanus II when the Admiral of the battle group and the Captain of the Yamato had been killed. He took command and saved the ship and the rest of the crew, and was given a promotion to Captain in return. Horito wasn't a by the books kind of man, and frequently disobeyed his superior officer's commands to do what he thought was the right thing; 90% of the time he was usually right. After a while, admirals refused to have the Yamato as their flagship because of its captain's reputation. It took years, but in 2550, Horito was promoted to Rear Admiral and given command of his own battle group. While unable to make it to Reach when it fell, he was instrumental in holding the outer Sol system during the Covenant assault on Earth.

"Admiral, we've had a communication blackout over half of Earth; we can't determine the cause," Brannigan reported.

"I was in the middle of a conference call with Admiral Smith at HIGHCOM when it got cut off," Horito explained, "you were planning to find out why?"

"Yes, Admiral," Apollo interjected, "I am in the process of linking up to the Collins Stellar Telescope on Luna. It has a communication hardline that leads to a relay station outside the interference." Apollo's face narrowed in concentration. "Admiral, I'm picking up some very peculiar transmissions, routing them in now."

"… can't identify them, they're clustered around a massive ship, the design is almost coven..."

"I've detected multiple emergency transponders from damaged warships along with a multitude of distress signals. Judging from the first transmission, I would deduce that we are under attack and the most likely culprit is the Covenant."

Admiral Horito immediately snapped into action and walked to the command console, "This is the Admiral, all hands to battlestations we are under Covenant attack. Apollo, put me through to fleet command."

"I cannot raise the home fleet, the flagship is among the ones inside the jamming field," Apollo replied.

"Its up to us," Horito said, "XO, tell the dock master he has sixty seconds to disconnect my ship or his docking assembly is coming with us."

"Aye, sir," Brannigan replied. "Ops, prepare all decks for departure, all hands to man their battle stations."

"Sir?" Williams questioned, "a third of the crew is off ship, we're in no condition for battle."

"Son, you're new here, so I'm gonna tell you the same thing I was when I reported aboard 20 years ago: the Admiral's always right. Battlestations, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir," Williams replied as he returned to his station and issued the appropriate orders. All across the ship alarms blared and half asleep crewman rolled out of their bunks and haphazardly put their uniforms on. The mess halls were quickly emptied as more of the crew ran through the halls to their stations. Outside the ship, the McKinley dockyard staff quickly began cutting all the connections to the ship even as the bow thrusters began their prelaunch warm up. The dock master had to sever the last connections to the Yamato through explosive bolts just as her bow thrusters fired and kicked her free of the station. The large warship then fired her two primary sunlight engines and raced towards the battlefield.

"Apollo, contact every available warship and order them to form up behind us," Horito ordered.

"Rear Admiral Willis is attempting to assume command of all home fleet assets in lieu of Admiral Harper. I cannot override the orders of home fleet vessels," the AI replied.

"Contact all non home fleet ships and order them to form up, then call Admiral Willis and tell him to get his head out of his ass and get behind my ship because the Covenant are breaking down our front door."

"Aye, Admiral," Apollo said.

"There's something I don't get, why are the Covenant using a field that restricts inbound communications but allows comms inside the field?" Williams mused.

"Whatever it is has to be fairly advanced for something like that; not normal Covenant tech," Horito replied.

"Admiral, Commander, I have been able to find the Covenant fleet using the telescope array, I think you should see this."

Both officers walked over to one of the larger displays as the AI piped in the feed. Thirty or so unidentified ships were escorting a much larger vessel that shouldn't exist. Both knew there were only two Covenant refit stations in existence, both of which were destroyed according to official records.

"Apollo, are those unknowns some kind of Covenant craft?"

A holographic representation appeared of the ships in question, they had a vaguely hook-like appearance, but didn't have the bulbous or smooth contours of Covenant ships.

"Apollo, unlock the secured ONI database on board," Horito ordered.

His avatar flickered into existence on the console the Admiral was facing, "I'm afraid only the ONI liaison officer has permission to access..."

"Emergency AI override, Alpha-3045-Ragnarok. Unlock the ONI database on my authority."

Apollo's avatar froze and flickered as he processed the request, "access granted, Admiral. Use of the emergency AI override and access to secured ONI files has been noted in the ship's log."

"I'll deal with the consequences, identify these ships," Horito ordered.

The display changed and began scrolling detailed data on the ships in question.

"These vessels are an unknown type of Forerunner warship encountered by the UNSC Spirit of Fire in 2531. Their armaments are unknown, but their hull and shield strength are most likely comparable to the Forerunner dreadnought encountered in 2552. Use extreme caution when engaging these vessels."

"Forerunner, sir? The same aliens the Covenant worshiped?" Brannigan asked.

"That bull about the portal in Africa being the only piece of tech left of them was a lie we fed the military and the public. Only flag officers and a few soldiers know at least parts of the true story. We've been finding their ruins for the past 80 years, the Spirit of Fire detonated their FTL reactor in an anchorage of those ships to keep the Covenant from using them on us."

"Sir, I thought the story was the Spirit's slipspace drive was damaged after they destroyed a Covenant ship and were forced to endure a slow journey to Earth?"

"That's bull too I'm afraid, how they actually got home is a tale way above my clearance. All I know is the Forerunners built these massive weapons to wipe out all life in the galaxy and the Covenant were planning to use them."

"Why in the hell would they build something like that?" Brannigan asked.

"They were fighting some kind of parasitic entity called the Flood, those weapons were the only way to defeat them," Horito explained, "course, they were all dead and the Covenant ended up bring them back, though we killed them for good this time."

Brannigan was confused by the tale he'd been told, "sir, how could we cover up something this big?"

"The people were a little more concerned with the war's end than to start asking questions, as for the rest, you saw that horror vid 5 years ago? The one about humans and elites banding together after New Mombasa was overrun by undead zombies?"

Now Brannigan was shocked, "you're telling me that actually happened?"

"Yes, it was the Flood that were the zombies, only it happened in Voi and not New Mombasa," Horito chuckled, "had to be the craziest instance of plausible deniability in human history, but it kept people from asking questions."

"Admiral, Rear Admiral Willis has ceded command of all remaining home fleet assets to you. In addition, UNSC high command has been able to use the secured landlines to get a message to all forces in Sol system. Our orders are to rendezvous in orbit of Luna and await further instructions."

"Well I didn't just get control of all home fleet assets just to let them sit and rot, I'm going in, have all incoming forces head for the Luna rendezvous and get me in contact with Luna base. We'll coordinate a two pronged offensive with my fleet and the ships at Luna along with Luna base's super MACs. We might be able to pin the enemy fleet in range of Earth's ODPs."

"What about that station, sir?" Brannigan asked.

"We'll need fairly big nukes to crack that station's shields, see if any of the land based silos are carrying anything short of a planet cracker. Hell get me any asset we've got on the surface no matter how classified and insignificant."

"Aye, sir."

With that, the second battle for Earth had begun.

XXX

Inside the null COM field, the Livewire shadowed the Unyielding Apocalypse and its fleet as it maneuvered through the last of the wrecked UNSC warships.

"It looks like they took shots at range with their weapons," Captain Sinclair mused, "caught them off guard."

"Ma'am, I'm not picking up any fleet signals that indicate reinforcements, I also can't get a hold of the ODPs"

"What!" Sinclair said, "we're well within range by now, why the hell aren't they firing!"

"Our scanners are reading no power emissions from any of the ones in range, its like they're dead in space."

"Find out why," Sinclair ordered, "and keep trying to get through to the other home fleet ships."

"Captain. I think I've got an explanation," one of the bridge officers said, "whatever is jamming our COM also seems to be generating some kind of interference on the inverse frequency of what we use to beam power to the platforms from the groundside generators. Its like they're jamming them too."

"Probably using technology from those ships," Sinclair mused.

At the back of the bridge, Rebbecca and Johnson watched the action unfold.

"There has to be something we can do," Rebbecca said in frustration.

"I know the feeling, but unless you wanna walk outside and knock on that station's front door and give them a big ol' nuclear pie, we're just gonna have to let the navy handle this."

"Uncle, I think you may be a genius," Rebbecca said as she walked up to the Captain.

"Always am," Johnson muttered under his breath.

"Captain, do we have any nuclear weapons aboard?" Rebbecca asked.

Sinclair rotated her chair around to face her, "we do, but we couldn't get close enough to use them. There's no telling if our stealth will work against Forerunner based sensors."

"The translocation devise, could we use it to get a nuke close or even aboard one of those ships, through their shields?" Rebbecca asked.

"I'm sorry, we explored the use of the technology as a weapon's delivery system, we determined it could penetrate shields but the nuke would have to be armed first, its circuitry is effected by some type of energy surge that occurs during transport. The nuke would have no way to explode."

"Send me over then, I'll arm the nuke and then you can bring me back," Rebbecca protested.

"I can't send a Marine on a one way mission, you'd have to bring that nuke to an area where it could do the most damage, navigating through that Covenant infested station. I can't authorize that, I'm sorry."

Rebbecca wasn't happy to hear that, but knew she was right. A single Marine couldn't infiltrate a Covenant station on her own, not without some really good backup.

"Captain, what if I knew a way to get the nuke in there safely?"

XXX

"You're in luck, this ship was designed mainly to support ODSTs special ops squads so we had all this stuff on hand," the armory officer explained as Rebbecca finishing zipping into an ODST bodysuit. Next cape the armor pieces and finally the helmet. She signed as she felt the familiar feel of the ODST helmet around her head and the sight of the VISR Mk IV tactical computer system in her faceplate.

"M7S sub machine gun with threaded silencer and red dot optical 3x zoom system," the armory tech said as he handed her the weapon and some extra ammo.

"M6C SOCOM with semi explosive frag rounds," Rebbecca took the weapon as well. She left the armory and walked the short distance to the room that held the translocation equipment. Inside she found the usual staff, as well as Captain Sinclair and Johnson, who was in full battle dress and carried an M7S as well.

"What's going on?" Rebbecca asked.

"I'm not sending you down to HIGHCOM alone either, we've been able to monitor local transmissions and it looks like the Covenant have ground troops on the surface, Sydney specifically. We're guessing their target is The Hive, all HIGHCOM members would have been evacuated there. So Johnson here has volunteered to escort you down."

"And since I technically can't follow orders, there's nothing you or the Captain can do to talk me out of it," Johnson stated.

"You sure you're up for it, old timer?" Rebbecca joked.

"Lets get down there and I'll show you what this damn 'old timer' can still do!"

Sinclair then began a quick mission briefing, "I've been in contact with Admiral Horito who's planning a counter attack within the hour, I want you to get the Spartans out of stasis and ready to deploy to the Unyielding Apocalypse in that time frame. We'll be placing you on the main courtyard at the HIGHCOM campus since we can't get an exact lock on The Hive bunker; another drawback of this tech is that we can't get exact coordinate fixes on something underground."

Rebbecca and Johnson stepped onto the translocation platform, Sinclair gave a small case to Rebbecca.

"Most of the Spartans in stasis down there have certain... complications. They were given experimental drugs that degraded their neural pathways. When they were put into stasis the damage was fairly advanced. In the case is a neural booster that will keep them lucid for up to three hours, there are enough doses for all of the ones affected. You need to be quick about administering them."

"Understood, ma'am."

"Good luck," Sinclair said as she nodded to the techs to initiate the sequence.

Once more, Rebbecca and Johnson were surrounded by the energy rings and whisked away. After three times through, Rebbecca was less queasy when they landed and she was lucky that she wasn't. A full scale battle was underway in the courtyard between UNSC personnel and a Covenant strike force which was hunkered down in the main administration building, firing on the forces outside.

"The hell you two doing! Take cover!" an ODST yelled at them.

Rebbecca and Johnson ran to that trooper's position behind a crashed statue of Preston Cole.

"Gunnery Sergeant Taylor Miles," the ODST introduced himself, "you can just call me Dutch on account of the informal situation. Where the hell did you two come from anyway?"

"Classified, sir," Rebbecca replied, "we have to get inside that building and down to The Hive to retrieve high priority materials critical to blowing that fleet in orbit out of the sky."

"You're in luck, my platoon was assigned to secure the main elevators down there. Only problem is the Covenant got to them first and they're hold up in that building," Dutch informed them. "I've got a group of fire teams flaking behind the main building, hopefully we can draw their snipers fire enough for us to blow through them."

"Sounds like a plan," Johnson said, "just like the good old days."

"Mickey, where the hell is that distraction!" Dutch asked over the COM.

"I'm working on it, boss, a wraith's got us pinned down, I'm gonna need to improvise here."

"Improvise faster!" Dutch yelled through the COM.

"Gunny, what kind of ordinance do we have available?" Johnson asked Dutch.

"A couple of rocket launchers we were planning to use to soften the Covenant up with, its not going to get us through their defenses if Mickey doesn't give us a distraction," Dutch explained. "The army guys brought that with them, but their el-tee got fragged before he could open it."

Dutch was pointing to a case lying next to the aforementioned rocket launchers, bearing the UNSC logo and various warning for high powered weapon.

"We've been a little busy trying hold this position to work on opening it," Dutch further elaborated.

"Let me have a try", Rebbecca said as she drew her pistol and carefully took aim at the locking mechanism at the front.

"Whoa! Watch it," Dutch cautioned as Rebbecca fired and destroyed the locking device. The semi explosive round kicked the case open and revealed the weapon inside, a UNSC plasma laser. The weapon was designed after technological exchanges between the UNSC and the Elites; it was derived from the Spartan laser and the Covenant Spec Ops issue plasma launcher. It had the ability to fire both a stream of plasma as fine as a laser beam, or launch lobs of unstable plasma for an explosive effect; although the latter used up the entire power supply.

"Corporal, you know how to use that thing?" Dutch asked.

"Yes, sir, but only in training scenarios."

"Well think of this as a live fire exercise, blast the snipers on the second level and I'll have my rifleman take out the forward barricade."

"I got you covered," Johnson said as Rebbecca shouldered the plasma laser. Johnson fired a burst from his SMG at the second floor windows. The jackal snipers took cover as Rebbecca lied the laser up with the broke out windows of the second floor. She switched over to plasma bombardment mode and pressed the trigger. Five blood red balls of plasma leaped from the Marines position and flew straight into the second floor; striking the ceiling above the still crouched jackal snipers. The explosion took care of the snipers and rained fiery debris down on the brutes and grunts manning the blockades at the front entrance. Dutch's riflemen began firing on the survivors before two rockets finished off the Covenant position and left the main entrance clear.

"All squads, move up!" Dutch ordered over the COM.

The surviving ODSTs, 26 in total plus Rebbecca and Johnson advanced quickly to the main entrance. The ODSTs lobbed a couple grenades inside before a fire team went in and moped up any surviving Covenant. Dutch, Rebbecca and Johnson entered last, by this time the rest of the ODST platoon arrived and Mickey was at the lobby console trying to get the elevator doors open.

"Boss, I've gotten the emergency override online, but none of the elevators are responding," Mickey reported.

"That means the Covenant got down there first," Johnson said, "do you have any rappelling gear?"

"No one is going anywhere just yet," Dutch said, "I just got off the horn with regional command, I have orders to hold this building and await Army reinforcements; they're sending in a team to secure The Hive."

"Gunny, we've got orders to get in there ASAP," Johnson said.

"Army command knows you're retired, Johnson, you can't give orders."

"I have the orders, Gunnery Sergeant," Rebbecca spoke up, "they were issued by Admiral Horito, they can't be overridden; I've gotta get down there."

"I never liked the Army anyway," Dutch said, "Mickey, get the climbing gear out."


August 19, 2572

Location: Lunar orbit- UNSC Yamato

"Three more battlegroups have arrived from the outer Sol system. The Tantalus system fleet is en route and will arrive in sixteen hours. In addition, the Sangheili second fleet of divine defense has responded to our distress calls and will arrive in twenty hours."

"Not good enough, Apollo," Admiral Horito said, "we have 59 ships already, it might just be enough."

"Admiral, with all due respect," Lieutenant Williams interjected, "the ships are just sitting there, they're not even glassing the surface. We should wait for the reinforcements before attacking."

"Lieutenant, in case you didn't notice thirty ships have already been destroyed and half the ODPs have been neutralized," Commander Brannigan pointed out. "Not to mention there are enemy troops running amok at UNSC headquarters!"

"That's enough, gentlemen!" Horito said, "Lieutenant I appreciate your input, but we can't go by the book. In fifteen minutes the MAC guns at Luna Base will be in range, we need to launch a preliminary strike by then."

The Luna military base was armed with thirty long range missile silos and three super MACs buried under the lunar surface, in addition to the twenty fighter squadrons stationed there. The base essentially made the moon into another ODP.

"Begin moving the fleet out of orbit, prepare to advance on Earth," Horito ordered. "Launch fighters."

The Yamato's complement of FSS-1000 Sabre starfighters raced from the hanger decks of the great ship. Initially they had been a highly classified prototype mass produced in secret on Reach, and were the subject of many conspiracy theories due to the sloppy job at keeping it classified. They had been deployed during the fall of Reach and due to the fact the schematics had been left on Reach, the Sabre was feared lost. However expeditions hoping to salvage materials from the destroyed fleet stumbled across a damaged but intact Sabre that had been disabled. From it, they had managed to begin reproducing it and its all important first generation spacecraft shield generator. Due to their high costs, Sabre production is slow but is slowly beginning to replace the venerable Longswords as the UNSC's primary starfighter.

"Fighter launches are occurring across the fleet and we've gotten in contact with air bases in Eastern Asia, we'll have extra fighters to open up another front," Brannigan reported.

"Excellent, have them engage any transports heading from the Covenant flagship to the surface. I'm sure the Marines in Sydney will be glad to have it," Horito said.

"Admiral, Luna base has a MAC solution on the Covenant flagship, our fleet is also reporting MAC and missile locks on other vessels."

"Engage at will, make sure the fleet uses non nuclear payloads, we can't risk EMP damage to the ODPs and satellite grid."

Over 60 MAC slugs were accelerated from the UNSC fleet toward the Covenant armada; hot on their tails were thousands of missiles and hundreds of Sabres and Longswords. The MAC slugs struck first, doing no discernible damage to any of the Forerunner ships and merely skimming of the shields of the Covenant battlestation.

"Initial MAC strike had no discernible effect on their shields that my sensors can detect," Apollo reported.

"That had to be a multiple teraton impact!" Brannigan exclaimed.

"We'll hit 'em with the super MACs, have Luna base fire everything they've got in their arsenal," Horito ordered.

The moon had just entered an optimal orbital position to attack with its MAC guns and missile silos, and so unleashed a massively destructive payload. The three slugs struck first, all targeted for the Covenant battlestation, and like the others either bounced off or shattered on impact with the shields.

Brannigan was even more shocked, "What the hell is it gonna take to kill them?

"Apollo, order all ships to switch to nukes and have Luna base load a full salvo of Shivas, this is on my authority," Horito said, knowing full well the excess EMP emissions would wreak havoc on the disabled ODPs and other technology not properly shielded.

"The Yamato's missile tubes have been loaded with Shiva class nuclear devises, similar load outs are reported across the fleet," Apollo stated, "wait, Admiral, the Covenant battlestation is realigning its position, they may be breaking orbit."

"We might have done some damage, they might be retreating," Horito suggested, "prepare a missile spread..."

"Wait, their orbit is stationary, but the station is rotating its orientation," Apollo provided a 3D representation on the holotable. The AI highlighted a previously unseen structure on the axial pole of one of the two asteroids.

"What the hell is that?" Brannigan asked as he stared at the readout.

"Infrared sensors are detecting a buildup of..."

A massive energy beam left from the structure and pierced its way through space, straight at Luna base. The beam passed the Yamato's fleet and struck the exact center of the base, continuing on and passing through the moon causing massive damage. The base had been vaporized and a full eighth of the moon broke off.

"My god," was all Horito could say as they watched the holographic representation of the moon.

"All communications with all lunar surface installations have ceased, remote sensors are recording massive seismic aftershocks across the surface," Apollo reported, "the Covenant station is reorienting its position, the weapon emitter is now facing the Earth."

Admiral Horito and Commander Brannigan could only watch as the Covenant station fired a consistent beam of energy at the surface of Earth.

"Where the hell are thy firing!" Horito barked.

"Southern Australia near the city of Adelaide," Apollo reported, "the beam appears to be glassing the ocean, massive evaporation is occurring."

"Apollo, what happens if this beam penetrates the crust and interacts with the mantle?" Brannigan asked.

"I do not believe it is powerful enough to do so, the beam only penetrates a few kilometers into the crust," Apollo said, "the station is shifting position, the beam strength remains unaltered. The station is moving slowly, dragging the beam eastward. Sir, if my calculations are correct the beam will wipe out Sydney in less than thirty minutes.

"My god, they'll kill everyone still inside the command bunker, all of HIGHCOM and the military hierarchy in one swoop!" Horito exclaimed. "Order all ships to begin nuclear bombardment."


August 19, 2572

Location: Earth, Australia- UNSC high command bunker "The Hive"

"All set," Rebbecca said after she finished setting up a COM relay at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Johnson was in the lobby, guarding against a possible attack. The lobby was in shambles which indicated the Covenant managed to get through, and considering the number of security personnel that were stationed in The Hive, the invasion force was considerable.

"Send a message back up, let Dutch know the Covenant stampeded the hell out of this place," Johnson said.

Before Rebbecca could send a message, both she and Johnson were knocked off their feet by massive vibrations.

"You ok?" Johnson asked as she helped Rebbecca up.

"I'm good," Rebbecca replied, "I thought most bunkers were supposed to be earthquake proof?"

"Stevens, Johnson, you alright down there?" Dutch asked over the COM.

"We're in one piece," Gunny, Johnson said, "what the hell's going on?"

"Regional command has ordered an evacuation, says the Covenant fleet is glassing Australia with some new weapon. It'll wipe out Sydney and The Hive," Dutch warned them, "if you start back up now you'll make it in time to catch the evac Pelicans."

"Negative on that, we've gotta complete our mission," Johnson replied.

"Look, I admire your dedication, but that place is going to be turned into molten slag in less than half an hour."

"We've got a mission to complete and our own way out," Johnson said, "I appreciate the concern, Gunny. Get your own people out of there."

"God speed you two," Dutch said before the COM was terminated.

"We've gotta hurry," Johnson said as the two ran past the smashed security checkpoint and into the main atrium they had been in only a day earlier. Rebbecca could just remember being surrounded by fellow ODSTs and almost in Ackerson's clutches. Now, that same atrium was in shambles, bodies of Marines scattered near a hallway where a hastily erected barrier had been smashed.

"The Covenant are probably swarming the lower levels by now," Rebbecca said.

"This way," Johnson said as he led them away from the elevators to the cryo chamber and down toward the office wing.

"Uncle, we're not going the right way," Rebbecca pointed out.

"Yes we are," Johnson replied.

They walked for five minutes until they came to a familiar set of doors, Captain Al-Cygni's office. Johnson kicked them open, ready for anything that might be inside. Her office was like the rest of the bunker, in shambles. The holographic screen that displayed a fake skyline was flickering on and off due to the bullet damage it sustained.

"Wait, bullets, not plasma," Rebbecca said aloud.

"Damn it, Ackerson's cronies must ave gotten to her before shit went to hell," Johnson dejectedly said.

"Hey, this is Aunt Jilan we're talking about here, Uncle. She wouldn't let herself get cornered without an escape plan."

"Yeah, I wanna check for a message though." Johnson sat down at her desk and activated her display. A message followed by a question popped up: 'to access save file answer question 'where we first did it''. Johnson chuckled and typed in 'cargo freighter bridge'.

"Ew, really?" Rebbecca commented.

"It was a different time, young lady," Johnson replied.

A video message popped up and began to play. Jilan was sitting in her office, alarms were blaring and shouts could be heard.

"Avery, if you've found this it means you didn't find me in here, I don't have much time so listen carefully. A few hours after you left shit hit the fan here; Ackerson made his move during a presentation to HIGHCOM. All of the Marine guards were plants... they killed every last Admiral and General in that room."

"Damn it," Rebbecca said.

"Not long after that, a Covenant fleet showed up in orbit, bypassed all the early warning nets and somehow disabled the orbital defense grid. They had fleet positions, COM channels, the frequency of our ODP power transmissions; its the only way they could have gotten the upper hand. I and a few others backtracked all COM logs; Avery, I think it was Ackerson who gave them the data."

"I thought he wanted to take over the UNSC, not destroy it," Rebbecca said.

"I think he was hoping to wipe all the higher ups out, most of our high ranking admirals were either in this building or in orbit," Johnson said.

"I know it sounds crazy, but we don't send all our high ranking people out of Sol anymore. Ackerson was probably planning for mass confusion, the perfect scenario of mass confusion to assert control over. You've gotta stop him, and if you're going to do that then I imagine you need the Spartans. I'll give you the access code to get in, but you'll need a retinal pattern of someone authorized. This is gonna sound morbid, but if you get one of the eyes from the dead admirals it should get you inside the cryo chamber. Good luck."

The message ended and the code to get inside flashed on the screen. Rebbecca placed a hand on Johnson's shoulder to reassure him.

"She's probably a thousand miles away in some other bunker by now," she said to him, "we've gotta go."

"You're probably right," Johnson replied as he got up out of the chair. The pair continued through the empty bunker, coming across more bodies, in some cases torn to sheds. They came across very few Covenant bodies, and they were mostly grunts and drones. Thankfully the auxiliary elevators were working and they were able to make it to the HIGHCOM briefing room; they had barely fifteen minutes before the Covenant glassed the city. They arrived at the corridor containing various memorabilia of wars past, and arrived at the double doors to the HIGHCOM briefing room.

"Wait here and keep an eye out for Covenant," Johnson said as he slung his rifle and drew his combat knife. "No offense, but this isn't something a green Marine should see."

"None taken, just make it quick."

Johnson went inside the room while Rebbecca kept a tight grip on her SMG, scanning for threats. It was surprising that they hadn't come across any Covenant, but wasn't about to question her luck either. Suddenly, her motion scanner detected a sliver of movement to her right; in basic they told her partial contact usually equaled active camo. Rebbecca dropped to a crouch and scanned down the hall with her weapon, she slowly began advancing until she saw the source of the movement, more dead bodies crushed under a decorative pillar; one wasn't so dead.

"Who's there?" a hoarse voice called out.

"Hold on, I'll get you out," Rebbecca said. She slung her rifle and grabbed hold of the pillar and pulled. The man underneath pushed up with all his strength and Rebbecca was able to roll the pillar off of him. Rebbecca offered a hand and helped the man up, then slammed him into the wall when she realized who it was.

"What the hell..." he was cut off as Rebbecca pressed the barrel of her pistol to his cheek.

"Ackerson, out of anyone who could have survived it had to be you!" Rebbecca said.

"Well isn't this a surprise, Corporal Stevens in the flesh. I thought you ran away cowering..."

Rebbecca slapped her gun across his face and Ackerson was knocked back to the floor. Rebbecca kicked him in his side and he rolled onto his back as Rebbecca pointed her gun at him.

"This is your fault! All of it!" She yelled at him.

"Well I don't know exactly who's been whispering in your ear, but what you don't understand is your duty to protect humanity. That's what I've been doing, even if it means consorting with the enemy to achieve that. This military is corrupt and I'm well on the way to purging its leadership."

"That doesn't justify this!"

Rebbecca tightened her grip oh her pistol, ready to kill the delusional maniac on the floor before her. Ackerson had killed so many, and committed so many crimes that he only deserved death; why shouldn't she be the one to do it? He was planning sick things for her, so why not just kill him.

"Rebbecca, don't kill him."

She looked up to see Johnson standing there, clutching a bloody plastic bag that held the eye he'd just harvested from a dead Admiral.

"Uncle, you and I know what he's done."

"You think I don't know that?" Johnson said, "but if you kill him here, now, everything he did will never be exposed. You want him to suffer, then we give him a nice public trial so everyone knows the name of the biggest traitor in history."

Rebbecca could see the logic in Johnson's suggestion, so she lowered her weapon. Johnson moved in and forced Ackerson on his stomach so he could bound him with some pare climbing rope. After frisking him to make sure he didn't have a knife or anything he could cut himself free with. Johnson hauled Ackerson to his feet and made him march in front of him and Rebbecca to the auxiliary elevators which they took to the cryo theater. Once they got to the door Johnson gave Rebbecca the code and eye and told her to open the door. She was feeling a little queasy, but kept her composure as she held the severed eye to the retina scanner.

"Access granted," the computer replied as the doors opened and the trio quickly got inside. Rebbecca sealed the door just to make sure they weren't interrupted by any stray Covenant.

"You're waking the Spartans?" Ackerson asked.

"To clean up the mess you started," Johnson said, "but don't worry, we'll get it all sorted out and you back to prison to see your shower daddy soon enough."

"Despite your immature understanding of the situation, Sergeant, none of this was supposed to happen," Ackerson said," they were supposed to attack HIGHCOM after I left."

"And you think we're supposed to feel sorry for you just because you got caught in the middle of your own sick plan?" Rebbecca asked. "Get over by the wall and shut up."

Ackerson did as he was told as Rebbecca and Johnson accessed the main terminal in the room.

"This isn't good, it keeps giving me an error message," Rebbecca said, "we should have brought a tech expert with us."

"I think if I mess with it enough I can find some kind of manual override or release," Johnson said.

"I do have some knowledge of these systems," Ackerson said, "however I am tied up at the moment."

"You, honestly wanting to help? I thought I told you to shut up," Rebbecca yelled at him.

"If you're trying to wake the Spartans then something serious has gone wrong with the Covenant attack," Ackerson said, "something that I didn't agree to or foresee happening."

"You mean to tell us that you didn't give a Covenant battlestation and its fleet of Forerunner ships they keys to our defenses for your own selfish gains?" Johnson asked.

"Wait, what Forerunner ships?" Ackerson asked. "I was told all he had was a battlestation with a Forerunner weapon."

"Well it was a hell of a lot more than that, Rebbecca said, "they'll glass the planet unless we can infiltrate the station, and we need Spartans to do that."

"Untie me and I'll help, I swear. I was used and lied to, that's something I don't appreciate."

Johnson moved to go to Ackerson but Rebbecca grabbed his arm. "Are you sure about this?" she asked quietly.

"I have no idea how to operate this thing, he might, just keep an eye on him."

Johnson freed Ackerson and sat him down at the control station and began shifting through the computer.

"I think I know the problem," Ackerson said, "the cryo units are loosing power. The computer is trying to regulate the system to keep them alive and at the same time its rerouting power to keep critical bunker systems online."

"Why doesn't the AI just wake them?" Rebbecca asked.

"Its offline and all systems have been switched to backup processors, which don't have the intelligence of even a dumb AI."

"Well that's what auxiliary power is for, turn it on," Johnson ordered.

"The Covenant have sabotaged the auxiliary power systems and are in the process of taking out the main power, that's what this loss is about," Ackerson said. "They're doing it to kill the Spartans."

"Why would they cut the power rather than come in here and kill them themselves?" Rebbecca asked.

"Because I told them the Spartans were donw here," Ackerson said, which earned him a slap on the head from Rebbecca.

"I didn't tell them where this room was, so rather than search they're just going to cut the power to make sure no one can do what you're trying to do," Ackerson said while rubbing his head. "I think I can stay ahead of them and get them awake before we loose power completely."

The lights in the room started to flicker and the computer screen began experiencing distortions.

"We're loosing power fast, at this rate the Spartans will be dead in a minute," Ackerson said.

"Start the emergency release!" Rebbecca said.

"I'm trying but the computer is loosing power," Ackerson said as he wildly tapped in commands to stay ahead of the power loss.

"Damn it!" Rebbecca said as she ran over to the row of cryotubes and wiped the frost off of one of them. Inside was a person inside an unfamiliar armor, not ones she'd seen in her history textbooks that the Spartans wore. Rebbecca began banging her SMG on the strengthen glass to break it open.

"If you do that you'll kill them, they can't handle the sudden change in temperature before resuscitation," Ackerson warned.

Rebbecca continued to try and break the glass, but her futile efforts were interrupted by a whine from the vital monitors; the spartan had just flatlined. Rebbecca looked to the tubes on the left and right, same deal, they were dead.

"Are they all dead... are they all dead!" She yelled at Ackerson.

Ackerson had just finished entering a command into the computer before he leaned back in the chair, "all but one."

The cryotube at the end of the row was still online had began the emergency revival process. The lid cracked open and a fine mist vented out, the lid rose up and revealed a lone spartan who began to stir. He flexed his gauntlets before sitting up and getting out of the tube; looking around the room he figured something was wrong with the presence of an ODST, a civilian and a retired Sergeant. Turning to Johnson he said only one thing.

"I need a weapon."