Sorry for the wait everyone, I hope to get back to a more regular update schedule now that the holidays have concluded. That being said, I will be taking my time with these next several chapters, as they are the culmination of a few months of effort and I want them to do justice to what the story has been leading up to. Inspiration has been lagging somewhat and I don't write my best when I'm forcing myself, so I'm trying to plan very carefully how everything will be brought to completion. I hope not to disappoint anyone (myself included) since some chapters have been a struggle for me and I still cringe looking back on them. I want to be satisfied with how this all ends.
Just one other note - someone recently inquired about a chapter title (Love Death Immortality) being in reference to The Glitch Mob, and yes it is. In fact, many chapter titles reference songs and artists, and most often those songs or artists served as inspiration for those chapters. Music is a huge influence on my writing, on my life in general. Maybe I'll put together a master list for which chapters reference which songs or artists specifically at some point.
Thank you for your continued support and feedback and I urge those who haven't yet reviewed to please do so, as it does give me motivation to continue (might as well admit it, is what it is). Those who leave feedback regularly - you are amazing and I thoroughly appreciate your comments.
Enjoy!
Lowering himself into the metal chair placed before the desk which took up half the floor space of the relatively small room, John told himself this was purely coincidental. He stared at the holo-platform mounted on the empty desk top which displayed the UNSC logo floating above it. He hadn't yet had time to fully digest what Linda and Kelly were proposing, nevermind act on it, so the orders he'd received that morning to proceed to the secure facility for an incoming comm couldn't possibly be related.
Before he had time to analyze it further, the logo vanished, replaced instead by Lasky's figure from the waist up. "Chief," he greeted, his expression seeming to reflect a similar sense of apprehension about what was to follow.
"Sir."
"I guess we're waiting on the Fleet Admiral."
John hadn't been informed who the communication would involve and he processed this new information. Perhaps this meeting would entail a reassignment to active duty?
"You're looking better than when I last saw you," Lasky observed after clearing his throat.
"I'm fully recovered." The more he repeated the lie, the easier it became. The incessant pressure in his temples was tolerable at the moment, though the light projected by the holo-platform was causing him some discomfort.
A second image joined Lasky's. "Master Chief. Captain Lasky," Hood said, glancing up from a tablet he held, his weathered features smoothing somewhat. "You might as well read the Chief in on the latest."
Lasky gave a nod. "At approximately 2300 hours yesterday, a Jiralhanae battlecruiser engaged and destroyed the UNSC frigate, Daedalus, which was patrolling one of the Guardians at the boundary between the Inner and Outer Colonies. They attempted to access the Guardian, we believe with the intent to abscond with it, but were met by Spartan-B312. She held them off long enough for the Guardian to escape into the Slipstream. At the same time, all other Guardians being monitored also fled. At 0400, a satellite Infinity had previously launched in the Nomos system detected multiple slipspace ruptures above the planet now known to us as Genesis. Seems like that's where the Guardians have been transported."
John had listened passively to all this, not allowing mention of Briar to alter his respiratory rate or facial expression, even if the report caught him on his back foot. His gaze flickered from Lasky to Hood. The fact she had been there and intercepted their enemies did not come across as though it had been unexpected by either, which he wasn't certain what to make of.
"You can no doubt imagine if we detected it, so did they." The Fleet Admiral was not wrong to assume as much. The Covenant had always possessed more advanced scanner capabilities than humans. "Knowing what we now do, we can under no circumstances allow those Guardians to fall under alien control. Our best and brightest might not have been able to crack the security measures that AI left in place, but I'm not willing to lay odds those bastards won't find a way around it." Here Hood paused. "Make no mistake, son, this is not an order."
"Sir?" John questioned, mental preparations for returning to action slamming to an abrupt halt.
"I'm offering this mission to Blue team, Master Chief. Out of respect. I know it's all been a lot of veneer and shine, and frankly I hate the farce, the cameras - it's a damned travesty, the whole thing. But I stand by my commitment to do right by you, by all the Spartans. The assignment is yours, if you want it. If you don't, say the word. You've more than earned the right to sit this one out, and I won't think any the less of you. The UNSC wouldn't think any the less of you, son."
The notion he should consult with his teammates was fleeting, but ultimately John knew he didn't need to ask to know what their answer would be. "Blue team will take the mission, Sir."
Lowering herself down, Briar did her best not to imagine what a bad moment it would be for her adaptive camouflage to malfunction, with her dangling down in plain view of the dozens of Jiralhanae, Kig-Yar, and Unggoy boarding phantoms which were about to deploy them onto Genesis's surface. She adjusted her grip on the smooth nanolaminate plating of the battlecruiser and watched through the energy barrier as one of the dropships lifted off the uppermost hangar deck. Timing was going to be everything if she wanted to avoid detection.
The phantom rose and banked towards the translucent barrier. The moment its fuselage passed through, she swung her legs back and launched herself inwards, clearing the energy field at the same time the craft exited. Rolling to cut down on noise from impact with the deck, she came back up onto her feet and hustled to the perimeter of the bay. She skirted equipment and a few clueless Grunts, making her way to the blast doors and pausing to wait for an opportunity to pass through when a Jackal entered.
The corridor outside the bustling hangars was no less busy, but the CCS-class battlecruiser had been fortuitously designed with the cargo hold in close proximity for easy transfer of supplies and weapons to outbound crafts, so she didn't have to go far. The odds of reaching her destination without being discovered were nevertheless slim, and although she managed to slip past another pair of Kig-Yar and the Jiralhanae behind them, a group of dithering Unggoy blocked the passage ahead entirely.
With a sigh, Briar brandished the plasma repeater she'd scrounged on Genesis and advanced on the five unsuspecting aliens. She broke into a sprint and leapt over their comparatively small figures, threw her shoulder into the Skirmisher approaching from the opposite direction and sprayed the two Brutes lumbering behind him with plasma fire. None had shielding engaged. The Skirmisher crunched back into the wall and slid to the floor, the Brutes bellowed in alarmed pain but didn't get the chance to bring their weapons to bear before she launched herself into them, bowling one over into the other. The Kig-Yar and Brute at the other end of the corridor were closing in as the Unggoy scattered. Firing off another barrage at close range into the tumbled Brutes, she punched one's grasping paws away and threw herself towards the opening cargo doors. Two more Jiralhanae burst out, followed by a troop of armed Grunts, all of whom appeared supremely puzzled by the seemingly enemy-free corridor and their injured cohorts. Until she plowed into them, that was. Several of the startled Unggoy started shooting, hitting each other more often than not in the confusion, while her shields deflected the bolts which actually found her armor. One of the Brutes roared as he was struck by the friendly fire and swatted the nearest Grunt aside, giving her the opening required to jam her combat knife into his chin and snatch the belt of grenades he wore. His reactive thrashing caught her full on in the breast plate, knocking her back into his comrade, who was quicker on the uptake than any of the others had been. A meaty set of arms closed around her, squeezing. The plasma repeater was trapped at her side, but she hit the trigger regardless, banking on catching her captor unawares or searing his feet. The burst of plasma careened off the deck and the Brute staggered, smashing her up against the wall, where she was able to get her boots up and kick back, shoving them violently into the opposite wall. This loosened the alien's hold enough that she could jerk her elbow into his gut and break free, slicing her knife across his snarling jaws as she spun away.
Without pausing, she charged into the cargo hold with the belt dangling from her arm and scanned the vast space for what she needed as a few stray plasma bolts followed her in. Those inside were on alert, but like her, they were aware the contents of some of the metal crates were less than innocuous and didn't dare to indiscriminately unload their weapons without a visible target. Jogging past stockpiles of supplies, she ignored the agitated shouting and the red emergency lighting which flashed on, warning of her presence. It wouldn't be long before the hold was crawling with reinforcements, so she stalked the aisles purposefully until she came to the one she wanted. Six Jiralhanae and three Kig-Yar already surrounded the neatly stacked munitions, the diminished volume of crates indicating most had already likely been transported to the dropships and other vehicles already infiltrating the planet below. Stowing her knife, she hastily depressed the detonators on all four of the plasma grenades and then hurled the belt high up onto the remaining crates at the same time she tore into the aliens guarding them with plasma fire from the repeater.
A lift at the far end of the room was opening, a half dozen more Brutes spilling out, but Briar retreated the way she had come, knowing her time was limited even if the lift could deposit her directly into the hangar bays. She pounded past Jiralhanae and Unggoy in the corridor, booting the latter out of her way and dodging the former, using her weapon only when necessary as she swiftly traversed the distance to the blast doors. Behind her, the first explosion sounded, followed immediately by several more in growing intensity, sending tremors through the deck beneath her feet.
The hangar was in chaos. Reverberations rocked the battlecruiser. Phantoms, seraphs, and banshees were still deploying as personnel frantically scrambled to board them. Plasma streaked into her shields from behind as she ran for the energy barrier, which flickered as power stuttered for a moment.
"Reclaimer, many oppositional forces are being deposited," Exuberant's anxious voice echoed over her comms.
"Copy that." In retrospect, bringing the Monitor along to pilot the expedition craft might have been a better idea than leaving it below to contend with infiltrating forces. "I'm on my way, but you're going to need to neutralize as many as you can until I get down there."
"Oh dear - I will endeavour to do so!"
Dismissing the warning about shield integrity, Briar lunged after one of the fleeing banshees, catching a rear fin as the craft was propelled through the failing energy barrier by the concussive wave from the imploding battlecruiser. A large piece of debris blown from the fracturing vessel struck the spinning type-27, knocking her loose and sending her sprawling through the gravity-less vacuum. Engaging her thrusters to steady her descent, she angled towards Genesis and brought the plasma repeater up, peppering any insertion pods which she was able to get close enough to. The crippled battlecruiser floated above as she broke atmosphere, still relatively whole but surrounded by a cloud of debris and with a gaping rent where the cargo hold had once been. Hopefully it would be enough to distract the crew, or ideally convince them to retreat.
A blast from a pursuing seraph crackled past close enough to throw up warnings on her HUD just as she was preparing to deploy her drag chute for re-entry. Twisting away from more weapons fire with a burst from her thrusters, she searched for cover as the friction from passing through Genesis's atmosphere at such velocity superheated her MJOLNIR, the external temperature steadily climbing while the prompt to deploy her chute continued to blink urgently. If she ejected the chute with the seraph still in pursuit, she'd be an easy target. On the other hand, she knew all too well the consequences of not utilizing the chute appropriately. And at this altitude and acceleration, even attempting to return fire - a fruitless endeavour in and of itself since the seraph would be shielded - would have likely sent her into a spin she wouldn't be able to recover from in time to deploy the drag chute. Tucking her arms in tight, she instead arrowed down, gaining yet more speed as bleating alarms sounded over her internal speakers. Maneuvering was dicey at such extreme velocity, but she knew the seraph would struggle breaking atmosphere as well, and that she was a relatively small target. Another blast from its plasma cannon streaked by. Her altitude was drastically dropping, approaching the limits of the range the chute had been tested to be effective within. Something tracked across her HUD, the Constructor almost too fast to identify as it shot upwards past her, followed by three more in rapid succession. Confused, but not in a rush to meet her end as a splat on Genesis's surface, she shot her drag chute and braced herself against the brutal jarring forces of being simultaneously hauled in two opposing directions. As the chute began to slow her descent she was able to tilt her head enough to see that the Constructors had impacted the seraph, destroying themselves and the alien craft. She noted in surprise others on similar kamikaze runs into encroaching ships and insertion pods.
Maybe the Monitor wasn't completely useless.
All around her, the sky was filled with the flashes of plasma fire, whines of engines, and crashes of the Forerunner constructs hurtling up from the planet to collide with phantoms toting ghosts and wraiths, banshees, seraphs, and insertion pods alike. Fragments of damaged and destroyed crafts careened through plumes of black smoke like shrapnel, reducing visibility and making the ground difficult to see. Making everything difficult to see.
"Reclaimer, are you operational?"
"Thanks to you."
"Very good news – your support would be appreciated. I have few Constructors left at my disposal and this is not their intended use!"
Briar snorted at how distressed Exuberant sounded by this point. "I'm incoming."