Thanks to Nawaki no Shinobi, The Sithspawn, ChaosRonin, WBH21C, The Insane Imortal Dragon, Anime-Ronin, Big-G, stcobb, Pagan ThunderGod, Ant Crown, TenWings, sil, Toras, rankokun alpha, and The Loneliest One for the reviews, they are always appreciated.
Sorry about the long update time, but I kinda hit a wall with this chapter. To be honest I'm not entirely happy with it but what can I say, it is what it is. Anyway thanks for reading and on with the story!
Chapter 13
The airlock doors opened and Xander and John stepped aboard the orbiting super-MAC platforms, one of dozens that orbited the Earth. Super-MACs were the ultimate weapons in the UNSC arsenal. The orbiting platforms were a gigantic version of the magnetic accelerator cannons that all UNSC heavy ships carried. Each station could accelerate a 3000-kilogram slug to one-tenth the speed of light every ten seconds, and place it with deadly accuracy. A solid hit from the gun platform felled even the largest of the Covenant capital ships.
This station, the Olympus, was also serving and the UNSC's command and control center. Immediately after stepping through the airlock, Xander and John were met by a young marine who looked awed and almost frightened by the pair.
"Sirs," he said, throwing a salute which Xander and John returned. "The Admiral has requested your presence in conference room B."
"Thank you Corporal." John replied. The young marine snapped John a quick but crisp salute and then went to join a fire team getting ready to sweep the Forerunner ship for Covenant survivors.
Xander followed John down the halls of the station, presumable heading towards the conference room where the admiralty and the leaders of the renegade sect of the Covenant waited.
"Do you plan to explain to me any time soon who you are or where you came from?" John asked, laying his gold tinted gaze on the substantially shorter Spartan beside him.
"I wouldn't be surprised if it came up when we got to the conference room," Xander answered casually. He didn't volunteer any more information and John decided not to ask and just see how this played out.
They reached the metal door lettered conference room B and John pressed the electronic chime beside the door.
"Enter," A gruff voice answered.
The door slid opened and Xander and John walked in, then snapped to attention and saluted.
Only once before had John seen this much high level Navy brass in one room, after the Covenant's assault on Cote d'Azur, the city on Sigma Octanus, the only planet the UNSC had ever prevented from glassing. Besides Admiral Hood, three other high level fleet commanders, Marine Major General Nicolas Strauss, and Colonel James Ackerson, a high level Office of Naval Intelligence officer were present. Also present were Commander Keyes, Sergeant Johnson and The Arbiter along with two other Elites who were wearing gold armour. The Elites were unarmed but armed ODST troops stood watchful over the alien trio.
Admiral Hood nodded to Xander and John. "At ease Spartans, damn good to see you Master Chief. I'm sorry son but I don't recognize you offhand." Hood said, nodding to Xander.
"No sir I don't imagine you would," Xander replied. "My name is Xander."
"That's not one of the names on the Spartan list!" Ackerson shouted, fiery in his tone already.
Xander had only one memory of Ackerson from John. At the debriefing session after his mission on Cote d'Azur, Ackerson had treated John with contempt and had referred to the Spartans as, 'Halsey's wind up soldiers' in front of the brass. It was obvious to Xander that he didn't like the Spartans and had a feeling he was going to be trouble.
"No, it's not. I'm, kinda not from around here." Xander replied.
"Sir, I might be able to help explain." Johnson added. "Xander here is from another dimension."
"I'm sorry, I can't have heard you right," General Strauss said. "Can you repeat that, Sergeant?"
"Yessir, I said Xander is from another dimension, Cortana could explain it better." Johnson said. "Why don't we get her fine looking purple ass in here?"
"Cortana is helping coordinate the fire teams aboard the Forerunner ship." John replied.
"Anyway the Sergeant is right." Xander added. "I'm from another dimension, I was dumped out of a portal on the Forerunner ship just before the Master Chief boarded it. Cortana explained it as since there are an infinite number of possibilities there is a universe in which possibility occurs. I'm from another reality."
"This is ridiculous!" Ackerson shouted. "Sergeant, have you been making a habit of bashing your head into bulkheads on a regular basis?"
"James, shut up." Hood said, glowering at the ONI officer. "I'm sick of listening to you bad mouth anyone or anything that comes close to supporting the Spartans or Doctor Halsey's work."
The Colonel opened his mouth to reply, but was silenced by a glare from Hood. "Now, as irritating as the Colonel is, he does have a point, this is all rather far-fetched." Hood said. "Now, Xander, Sergeant, would you care to explain?"
"Well sir, in my reality the year is 1998. The supernatural is real, and the events of the Halo incident are a video game. For Halloween I dressed as the Master Chief and a chaos mage performed a spell that transformed everyone into their costumes. At the end of the night everyone changed back except me. We determined that was because of Cortana, since she came into the reality as part of a spell but did not possess anyone she remained after it ended. For her to remain alive the costume would have to be real MJOLNIR armour and for me to survive inside I would have to be a Spartan." Xander explained. "And I can see by the looks on all your faces that you think I'm a complete nutcase."
"Master Chief, what's your opinion of Xander here?" Hood asked. "Is this some kind of trick?"
"He's a Spartan Admiral, just not one of ours." John replied. "We're sure he's not a Spartan III?"
"The Spartan program was wiped out with the rest of Reach." Strauss replied. "All the Spartan III trainees were killed."
"I believe Xander may be telling the truth." The Arbiter added. "Shortly before the attack on Earth I heard rumours of research into interdimensional portals. He may well be from another dimension."
"This is a trick!" Ackerson shouted. "He's some kind of Covenant plant. Gain our trust, then gut us from the inside!"
"No," Hood said, "that's far too subtle for the Covenant, they don't have that much tact. No offense." He added, nodding to the Arbiter.
"None taken, and I give you my word that I know nothing of what is going on here." The Arbiter replied.
"Sir I give you my word as a Marine Xander is telling the truth." Johnson said. "I spent a couple of weeks in his world, and I trust him with my life."
"How could you have spent a couple of weeks on his world?" Keyes asked. "You were only out of sight for a few hours today."
"Look," Xander said, bringing the attention of the room back to him. "I understand this is confusing, but we really need to focus on what's going on right now. Sergeant Johnson trusts me, Cortana trusts me, and we really need to focus on the bigger problems right now. So can we just accept this for now and deal with it later?"
Hood and Strauss exchanged looks, then turned to Xander. "Alright, Xander. But we'll definitely be continuing this discussion." Hood said seriously.
"Yes sir."
"I can't believe you're going along with this!" Ackerson shouted angrily.
"Colonel if you don't like the situation you're more than welcome to leave." Hood said. "I'm not exactly thrilled either but given then gravity of the situation we need any Spartan we can get."
Ackerson scoffed and opened his mouth but before he could speak Hood cut him off.
"I really got give a damn what you think of the Spartan program James." Hood said. "If you could see five feet past your own agenda you could see that the Spartans are probably one of the only things that have held the UNSC together. Until he gives us a reason otherwise, we are going to give Xander the benefit of the doubt, and that is final. Now, returning to the problem at hand, Master Chief you were the last person aboard High Charity, what's the situation."
"Bad, sir. The city is completely infected. The prophets probably did us a favour by taking the Ark though, it was powering the city so now she's dead in space."
"Thank god for small favours," Strauss said sarcastically. "Now they only have the thousands of ships that are docked with the city."
"My forces have created a no fly zone buffer around the city, but we are spread too thin." The Arbiter added. "It will only be a matter of time before an infected ship slips through."
"We'll reinforce it best we can, but between the battles for Reach and Earth, our fleet has been decimated." Hood said, a slight edge in his voice. "We have only a few dozen ships available right now."
The Arbiter nodded. "I understand, and on behalf of my people I apologize for our contribution in the damage we've caused you. I know no apology is sufficient, but I offer one all the same."
Hood nodded. "You're right, no apology is sufficient, but for the time being we can at least put aside our differences and try to stop the Flood."
"There are other… complications, sir." The Master Chief said. "At first we thought the Flood was merely a parasite, that the only skills it had were obtained through memories from the host, but while on this Halo I encountered a creature called Gravemind. It seems to be a leader of the Flood."
"Leader?" Strauss asked.
"If I may sir," Xander waited for Strauss to nod, then continued. "Think of the Flood like a hive, with Gravemind as the queen bee. The infection and warrior forms are mostly mindless, but can take orders from Gravemind, who seems to be intelligent."
"Are you saying the Flood might have some kind of agenda?" Hood asked.
"I don't know sir, but you can get they're at least trying to figure out a way to get out of that barricade." Xander said.
Cortana suddenly flickered into existence on a holographic pedestal in the middle of the table. "Sorry I'm late," Cortana said. "Admiral I take it you've been introduced to Xander?"
"I have, as well as the idea that the Flood is at least partially sentient." The Admiral replied. "We need to deal with this as quickly as possible, before the problem spreads. I need ideas, people."
"What about firing just the one Halo?" Strauss asked. "Cortana, would that be possible?"
"It might be, but there are still four occupied worlds within range. The Halos were designed to overlap substantially in the event of a failure." Cortana replied.
"Could we destroy it with nukes?" The Master Chief asked.
The Arbiter shook his head. "The point defense systems on the city are very good, any object not of Covenant construction and broadcasting the appropriate codes would be destroyed."
"Even then it would be no good," Cortana said. "You're not grasping the size of this city. High Charity is more than a hundred kilometres long, even with our most powerful nukes they would need to be placed deep inside the city to ensure complete destruction."
Something clicked in Xander's head. "We might have that already." He turned to the Arbiter. "On Reach Vice Admiral Whitcomb left an experimental nuke called a Nova on a countdown timer hoping you would find it and take it back to High Charity. Did you?"
The Arbiter nodded. "We found the weapon, but deactivated it. I believe it is sitting in one of our laboratories right now."
"Then we already have a weapon in place." Xander explained. "We just need to insert a team, fight our way to the lab, and activate the weapon. The city, and hopefully the Halo is destroyed."
Hood favoured him with a smile. "Damn, you must be a Spartan. Only a Spartan could come up with a plan that suicidal and actually think about pulling it off. Master Chief, what are your thoughts?"
John thought for a moment. "It's a high risk mission sir, even for us. But I think it might be possible."
"I will offer any assistance I can, including troops to reinforce the boarding party." The Arbiter added.
"We'll also need a Covenant dropship, and the codes to get past High Charity's point defence system." Cortana said.
"Alright then," Hood said. He turned to the Arbiter. "Coordinate with the Master Chief and assemble your team. Let me make it clear that the boarding party, the entire boarding party, will be under his command. Is that going to be a problem?"
"The Master Chief has thwarted dozens, maybe hundreds of attempts by Covenant ground troops in the past. It will be an honour to fight beside him." The Arbiter replied. "I will make sure any Sangheili who feel differently will be left behind."
Hood nodded. "Alright then people, let's get to work. Dismissed."
Xander checked his shotgun then chambered a round and slung the weapon over his back. Around him, the four remaining Spartans loaded up their weapons, along with the Arbiter and another nine Elites he had chosen to join the boarding party.
The Master Chief stepped beside Xander and watched him for a moment. "Xander, I'm placing you in charge of checking the Elites readiness."
Xander nodded, understanding why the Chief had given him the job rather than one of the other Spartans. He trusted Xander, the outsider, to do the job right with less prejudice than his brothers and sisters who had fought the Covenant for so long. "Yes sir."
Xander walked to the group of Elites. "Alright, warriors listen up."
The Elites stopped and looked at him, no trace of malice or anger in their eyes. Mentally Xander nodded, the Arbiter had made sure to pick the utmost professional of his warriors.
"I know the Arbiter picked you because you're the best, but this is a high risk mission and we need to work together seamlessly to pull this off. It's critical that we all watch each other's backs if we're going to pull this off. You'll notice that we're using human weapons, this is because they've proven more effective again the Flood. The way this is going to work is that we are going to work as fire teams, with a division of five covering each short, medium and long range. No matter what is happening, you have to put first priority on your designated fire zone. If there are targets there, they are first priority. Now I know in the past, Elites were the first to rush into battle, seeking honour and possibly an honourable death, but you can't do that this time." Xander said.
There was some grumbling about this comment from the Elites.
"No!" Xander said loudly. "This is not open for debate. Look at it this way, there is no honour in dying a useless death and failing in our mission. We stick together, and we work as a team and that's final!"
The Arbiter favoured him with a nod, and the grumbling from the other Elites ceased.
"Okay," Xander said. "Take as much ammunition as you can carry and a good back up weapon for in close. Be ready, we leave in ten minutes."
Xander turned and walked away, back to his own equipment. He grabbed a battle rifle, good for medium range coverage, and started picking up clips throwing them in a backpack he would carry.
John approached him. "What do you think of them?" He asked.
"They'll do the job," Xander replied. "Just make sure you show them the same respect you'd show any other Spartan."
John nodded almost imperceptibly. "I'm placing Fred in charge of the medium party with you and three Elites, report to the ship and him when you're loaded."
"Yes sir." Xander threw a salute that John returned before walking away. A moment later he picked up his backpack and his weapons and headed for the dropship, and the most horrible hell he could ever imagine.
End Chap 12
Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, I'll try and get the next one out soon, but I have a feeling it's going to be a long one. Anyway thanks for reading and please leave a review!