The bright lights of the Shadow of Intent's hangar bay kept the UNSC vessels bathed in white as the portal to The Ark tore away the world around them. Armored plates had slid down over the normally shielded bays, just in case something went wrong and rendered them useless or inert.
Inside the Forward Unto Dawn, crewmen had finished securing craft active or otherwise, straps and chains holding everything in place before they all scurried to the safety of elevators and storage rooms. A dozen fighters and transports sat waiting, including the Sabre and a retrofitted heavy gunship that had been made from a gutted Pelican, twin machine gun turrets on the underside of each wing swiveling in an attempt to find a target.
The lighting in the Dawn was just as bright, and it glared off of the canopy and console of the Sabre, reflections glinting off of Morgan's visor as she ran through the ship's systems.
Then something happened. The ship began to shudder, and a warning blared in the cockpit as the gyroscope warned of multiple sudden G's. The Shadow of Intent had pushed completely into the portal, and it hadn't been gentle. The entire ship was shaking and outside of the armored hull of the Dawn, held down at multiple points in the Intent's bay, everybody else was as well.
Morgan felt something come over her, almost like a sickness, as a wave of nausea flooded her mind. Her stomach twisted and turned, and a pressure behind her eyes started up. It felt like nails were being driven into her eyes and she reflexively reached to rub them, to put her hands against them until the pressure went away, but she stopped herself as she remembered her helmet.
She didn't dare to take it off now.
The shuddering worsened, and through the clear cockpit she saw several craft shaking against their restraints as her own Sabre started wobbling against the heavy chains looped through the landing gear struts and the hollow area of the wings. The Sabre warbled another warning that reached her ears, whining that it was being stressed until she silenced it with a shaky hand.
Her chin pressed against the button in her helmet, pulling up the HUD menu and switching through it to the armor's diagnostics systems, and the squad roster pulled up to show her vital signs were shaky. Not redlining, but not the calm bead that it usually showed. A warning sign next to it did little more for her than to remind her that she should be careful, and she rolled her eyes, despite the pain it brought.
The Master Chief's vitals showed as well, somewhat shaky, but far more contained than her own, and she frowned. He was probably faring better than she was through all of this.
The maneuvering thrusters on Hocus Pocus shifted and rotated as Hocus, sitting at the helm of the Pelican, manipulated the controls, likely to make sure they were working properly. That, or going through the automated diagnostics for the craft again. Morgan initiated her own and felt the ship's life fill it as the maneuvering thrusters at the rear of the Sabre flexed and shifted, widening and narrowing, and then forming nozzles to deflect the thrust one way or another to aid maneuvering. Small flaps and ailerons across the Sabre's wings followed suit, all of them working fine as she watched out of the three mirrors positioned across the upper rim of the cockpit at the frontal structural support.
Everything checked out alright, and Morgan let out a satisfied breath that at least something was going right, even as the urge to puke grew a little bit.
Then, thankfully, everything stopped abruptly. The shaking, the nausea, the biting pain behind her eyes, everything had stopped as quickly as it had begun. A chirp sounded and her cockpit's comms suite came to life.
"Status report, everybody good?" The deep tones of Johnson sounded in her ears, and she heard multiple calls that went through all of Sierra flight.
"Sierra 1-1, Hocus, all good."
"Sierra 2-1, Hammerfall, we're green."
"Sierra 3-1, Jericho, I'm green in the face but we're ready to go."
"Ranger flight, what about you?" Johnson called to the team of Broadswords that sat across the hangar bay, and Morgan looked over to see the pilots reaching across their cockpits and checking their systems.
"Ranger 1, Caesar is locked."
"Ranger 2, Scoundrel is loaded."
"Ranger 3, Antares is ready to rock."
She could almost see Johnson shaking his head, despite the Pelican being turned in a way that she only saw the rear of the craft. "You all ever gonna get rid of that corny ass sequence?"
"You ever gonna stop with your corny ass flip music?" Ranger 1 replied, the deep voice of a black man filtering through even deeper than Johnson's.
Johnson snorted. "Not on your life, Gibson. Noble? You asleep again?"
Morgan keyed into the conversation, flipping through each of her multiple systems as she powered the rest of them on, just short of firing the engines and taking off. "Ranger 4, Noble, tracking Sergeant Major."
"Confirmed. All birds, arm weapons and wait. We'll be launching from the Dawn as soon as she clears the hangar bay. Then we get dirty. Switch to squadron based channels, commanders keep contact and relay as needed. Sierra 1-2 out."
A chorus of clears went up as the pilots of Sierra and Ranger sounded, and then it all petered out with Six switching to the frequency Ranger would be using. She came on right as they started talking, having already known the drill. Joining the channel, three names appeared in the top left of her HUD, the callsigns of each pilot, and each grew brighter as the voices belonging to each pilot came across the channel.
The deep voice of Ranger 1, Caesar, was on the channel already. "-Heard the man. We're gonna be in for it if anything is waiting for us. You all saw how many ships were around the artifact."
Scoundrel was next, a light chirp in comparison to Caesar's deep baritone. This one was a woman, and from the sound of her voice, she could have been a pixy. At least, her voice could have belonged to one. "Outnumbered and outgunned somewhere far from home? We've had worse. I'm itching to get back into it."
Antares came last, a silky smooth voice filtering into the air of Morgan's cockpit, the sultry accent of a man who spoke Old Italian sounding loud and clear. "We aren't forgetting that we have a Spartan following us? You are comfortable, no, Noble?"
Morgan quirked an eyebrow. "It's not been long enough that I've forgotten how to walk, Antares."
"I would hope not, Noble. I know that should I hear your beautiful voice too much, I may swoon and forget how to walk myself."
Scoundrel's reply was leaking exasperation. "Damn it, we aren't even off the deck and you're turning on the charm."
Whatever else he planned to say was cut off as the woman in question answered before him. "It's no problem, Scoundrel. I hope he flies better than he flirts, though."
The deep laugh that came from Caesar, his signal lighting up, rang in her ears. "Damn, the scorpion just got stung."
Morgan let herself smile slightly as Caesar and Scoundrel teased Antares, the Italian man keeping quiet as they went on. She ran through the weapons checks as they waited, and was pleased to see she had a full load of three dozen missiles, half in each wing mounted magazine, and an entire drum of ammunition for each thirty mil.
The weapons selector flipped between the two. When the missiles were selected, the racks for the missiles slid out from their hiding places behind the Sabre's heavy armor, and switching to guns put them away as the cannons were already exposed.
Something else was ready, however. Flipping a switch, the shielding emitters on the Sabre's hull powered on and hummed to life, a glimmering silver shield covering the hull before brightening as it pulled from the Sabre's beefy power plant, reaching full strength quickly.
The conversation between the rest of Ranger ceased, all of them having watched as their new pilot gave the Sabre shields. None of them had shields, and they all quietly wanted to know why as they watched her go through more checks in the cockpit of the Sabre, hidden behind lightly tinted glass.
She didn't deign to answer the unspoken questions, and deck crew swarmed the area to unsecure the ships from where they had been clamped down. That meant things were about ready to pop off. Wheel chocks were left in place, only to be taken out right before take off.
Things were quiet for several minutes, and then Caesar's voice filled the air waves again. "We're deploying! Engines up!"
The pilots of Sierra and Ranger all started activating their powerful thrusters, the loud drone quickly deafening any other sounds in the hangar. The open bay doors of the Forward Unto Dawn showed several Phantoms, Seraphs, and Banshees lifting off in the glaring lights of the Intent and rocket off to the side, out the now open bay doors.
The Dawn rumbled and shook as they were detached from the Intent, and the interior of the carrier started moving slowly before falling away, and being given an opening to see space outside. Looking past the rear of Hocus Pocus, the outside was something that all those onboard had never expected to see.
A colossal shape expanded out for thousands of miles in every direction beneath them, a massive steel octopus that could almost reach out and crush the lot of them in its arms. The top side was covered in rivers and oceans, jungles and swamps, tundras and deserts, all manner of environments hostile or otherwise to a Human. Then, in the distance, far beyond their reach, the Milky Way Galaxy was little more than a yellow-white swirl against a dark black background.
Morgan felt her breath catch in her throat as she realized just how far away they all were, and someone else voiced the words they were all thinking.
"What in the hell…?" Caesar's deep tones hung in the air like smoke, and if his canopy hadn't tinted darker as the lights went up, she would have seen him gaping at the sight.
The comms suite chirped as another channel overlaid itself over the one used by Ranger, Commander Keyes' voice filling the air. "All flights, prepare for launch. Escort craft stick close to the Dawn until your charges have been launched. Hit the surface of whatever that is and secure a landing zone. We won't have much time. Commanders, Flight Ops has you now."
Nobody responded, but Morgan felt the Sabre shudder again as a magnetic launching clamp grabbed the topside of her hull, pulling her off of the wheel chocks and into the air over an empty expanse, the hangar doors underneath having opened up and exposed the interior to a vacuum. In front of her, the rest of Ranger flight had been done the same way.
A new voice filled the squadron channel, calm and collected, and Morgan listened as a woman belonging to Flight Ops set them up. "Dawn Flight Ops to Ranger, mission is to escort Sierra Flight to the surface of the object below, designation Ark. Call for more orders upon completion and you'll be retasked to the space battle. Over."
Caesar was quick to respond, all business as whatever joviality he had disintegrated. "Ranger copies, Flight Ops. Ready for deployment. Over."
"Releasing in three- two- one- launch. Flight Ops, out."
The magnetic clamps that held the Sabre reversed their polarity and the four fighters were launched down and out of the Dawn, four sets of boosters flaring brightly as they cleared the way and moved to either side of the Dawn, getting their bearings before Sierra launched. The effects of artificial gravity disappeared and Morgan felt her stomach float in the eternal free fall of zero gravity, but she clamped down on the feeling, pushing it to the back of her mind like everything else.
In the distance, the silvery hulls of Covenant warships, looking like steel sharks swimming through the darkness of intergalactic space, oriented on the new fleet that had jumped in. Dozens of smaller lights, belonging to single ships like Banshees and Seraphs, lit up void as they closed with the Human-Sangheilli fleet.
The Dawn did the opposite, pulling up and away from the Covenant Loyalists to hide behind the formidable bulk of the Shadow of Intent, and the ships of Ranger Squadron followed closely.
Morgan watched as all of the allied Seraphs and Banshees rocketed off, ready to engage Loyalist forces like the Sangheilli always had towards the UNSC, and Phantoms and Spirits peeled off towards the Ark, expanding out beneath them.
"Sierra is out, Ranger, glue up to them." Caesar's order was clear, and all the birds of Ranger rolled onto their backs and pulled up, diving for the installation below as the Pelicans of Sierra launched from the Dawn.
The four fighters wasted no time in spreading out around Sierra, taking a wide formation. Morgan felt the effects of the maneuvers, but her armor was more than fine with being pressed into the flight seat. Not far off, enemy forces had been engaged, and inevitably some had slipped through. She keyed her mic, the rest of Ranger likely already alert. "We've got company, closing fast."
"I see them, Noble. Stick close to Sierra, don't go too far. Scoundrel, cover."
"Aye sir."
"Aye sir."
Morgan broke from the position on the right side of Sierra, the Sabre responding better than ever before, and the missile pods on either wing were open. Half a dozen enemy Banshees had gotten through, and her targeting software was already locking them up, several dull chirps sounding as each Banshee was acquired by the Sabre, before all six were covered in bright red diamonds accompanied by a solid buzz. Pulling the trigger, all six were the targets of Medusa missiles that came screaming out of their launch tubes faster than any craft in the battlespace could move.
Three of them were knocked out before they could evade, turning into little more than clouds of debris as some of the first souls to be snuffed out over the Ark. Another was clipped by a missile but still more than capable of fighting without problems, and the last two completely missed, drawing a frown from the Spartan.
Scoundrel was up next, but didn't use missiles. Instead, her Broadsword rocketed past, the twin 35mm autocannons in the nose locking onto targets and tracking them on their semi-articulated mounts. Golden tracer fire spewed from the cannons in a withering fusillade that tore chunks off of one Banshee, ripping it to shreds, before smacking into the other two enough to have them both turn back, trailing flames and leaking atmosphere. They were dead already, they just didn't know it yet.
"Form back up, Noble. Tight leash."
"Roger."
Morgan pulled the stick around and adjusted the throttle bar, pushing it forward and increasing speed as she formed up on Scoundrel's wing. Then she felt it. She was a well oiled machine again, working seamlessly with a new team, and that familiar feeling of having someone with eyes on your back when yours were on the front, it was intoxicating. She knew it wouldn't be for long, and as soon as the space battle was over they would be gone and she would be sent back to the ground, but she savored it for what it was.
The Pelicans of Sierra were in a tight formation, and the other half of Ranger kept a close eye on their charges. Morgan glanced down at her instruments, the light of several reds, greens, and blues reflecting off of her visor, and she saw something that even she couldn't react to in time, even with her enhanced reflexes.
Spartan time kicked in and the world slowed down to a crawl, and she realized the mistake both herself and Scoundrel had made. Her radar whined a warning, and her head swiveled as a Banshee, half torn apart and spewing plasma and flames, passed by between her and the Broadsword on her wing.
She pulled on the flight stick, trying to get guns on target, but it was already too late. Her crosshair passed over the Banshee at the precise moment that it slammed into one of the Pelicans, Sierra 2, and ripped the transport in half before both craft detonated in a shock that jostled the Sabre even at the distance she was at. Sierra 1 and Sierra 3 both went evasive, instincts taking over as one of their own were wiped out.
Hocus' voice filled Morgan's ears as she cursed her lack of situational awareness. "Sierra 2 has been hit, Pelican down! Ranger, keep those damn things off of us! We can't go any faster or we risk burning up, atmosphere over that thing is getting too thick!"
"Ranger copies. Open the formation, cover your sectors, confirm your kills. We can't lose another one."
All members of Ranger copied and the three Broadswords and their Sabre companion split up, opening up the distance between the Pelicans and themselves as more single ships pushed for the transports. At this distance, the pulse laser fire being thrown out in thick sheets was tapering off as the strike force dived further and further from the allied fleet.
Morgan frowned, the debris field left by Sierra 2 disappearing off of her left shoulder, a few corpses having survived the strike despite the Banshee's kamikaze attack hitting directly amidships. She didn't want to see that again.
"Caesar, we've got a tail." Antares called out, and all of them saw the dozen or so blinks on the rear section of their radars, Seraphs mostly. They were shielded, and would take more punishment.
"Caesar copies. Noble, you're with me. Scoundrel, you're Element 2-1, get the job done. We'll be with you again shortly."
"Scoundrel copies"
"Noble copies."
Morgan pulled back on the stick, the Sabre bringing its nose up and over, before she rolled 180 degrees and moved to form up with Caesar. The Broadsword was sleek and curvy, and it was armed to the teeth. She continued making small adjustments to the stick, sliding in on his left wing. Every small movement, every nudge or twitch, it felt magnified to her. The re-entry pack that connected her armor to the seat did its best to keep her from being thrown around the cabin, but the smaller movements were impossible to stop in the zero G environment of the Sabre's cockpit.
In the distance, flares of light sparkled against the void, Seraphs hurtling towards them and their charge with nothing to block the way except for a pair of single ships. If any of them got past the two UNSC fighters, the rest of Ranger would have trouble keeping them at bay.
Pushing the thruster bar forward, the Sabre jumped, twin engines belching blue flame as the ion engines were fed more and more power, taking it in and pushing it out. The Seraphs were closing faster and faster, the distance evaporating as they accelerated. Several faded diamonds covered the enemy signatures on Morgan's HUD, none of them locked but all of them registering. Caesar, on her right, broke further in that direction, and she broke to the left, and the pincer opened up around the Covenant formation.
"Work from the outside to the center, use their numbers against them, Noble."
He didn't have to tell her twice, but she didn't deign to answer, because in a few seconds they would merge with the Seraphs, and then the fur would fly. The outer echelons broke to engage their new targets, but the center kept pushing, moving even faster to try and break through while the two UNSC fighters were busy.
Morgan keyed her comm, the first Seraph filling her targeting crosshair as she squeezed the firing stud for the two autocannons and sent burning tracers across the Seraph's shielding, a silvery glow covering the alien craft. "2-1, count four possible Seraphs breaking through, get ready for company, we'll hold the rest."
"Thanks for the heads up. We'll handle it." Scoundrel's chirp had deepened to something more, something focused entirely on the battle at hand, all hints of a Pixy hiding in her gone.
The Seraph's shields broke after a moment of sustained fire, and Morgan's thumb flicked the weapons selector switch to missiles, locking almost immediately due to the short range and the size of the Seraph. Four Medusa missiles shot out, and if there had been air, she would have heard them screeching as they shot after their target.
The first missile impacted, hitting one of the engines and blowing it apart, the second and third following close behind and impacting amidships, and the fourth missed due to the kinetic force of the other missiles hitting. It didn't matter, because the Seraph had met its match after the second missile hit. Secondary explosions went through the hull before ripping the fighter apart in a cloud of orange and blue flame.
She didn't have time to admire her kill, however, and quickly turned her guns on another Seraph, repeating the steps from before. Her third ship came soon after, and she was on its tail with little effort.
The first burst of cannon fire hit home, but then the Seraph started going evasive, forcing her to follow or risk losing it, and she grunted as the G forces began to take hold of her. She controlled her breathing, deep breaths and tensed muscles dealing with most of the sensation, and kept herself locked on target.
More cannon fire struggled to hit home, but most of it missed, and she frowned, taking more time to lead the target and line up her shots, before another burst hit it and knocked out the shielding on the craft, some rounds managing to get through and make hits on the bulbous craft's right wing, ripping several holes into the hull and leaving a nasty smattering of puncture wounds on it.
It wobbled and rolled, looking as if it was out of control, before it stabilized and several thrusters on the front of the craft fired, retro thrusters stopping its forward momentum as Morgan rocketed past.
Her lips parted slightly in surprised, and she immediately started evasive manuevers, the Sabre lacking retro thrusters. It had been an unexpected maneuver. Brutes had never been good thinkers in a fight, much less in naval or aerial combat. This one apparently broke that mold, and as plasma bolts splashed against the bright silver shielding of the Sabre, she knew she had to do something or she'd risk getting herself killed.
She juked and banked, rolled and dove, but the Seraph was always on her. The pilot couldn't get many hits on her with her evasive style, but it never lost her trail, and she cursed as she looked back over her shoulder to see it still hot on her heels. "Caesar, I've got a tail. Can you assist?"
A few moments of silence, before a strained grunt came through. "I'm un-" A deep breath and the sound of the man's body tensing up. "-unable to assist. You're on your own, Noble."
The words he used sent ice hurtling through her veins, the words of a dead man that had sacrificed himself for her to complete her mission. It did something to her, and the world slowed down.
Spartan time kicked in, and the plasma bolts rushing past either side of her canopy were little more than blue blobs that could have been dodged by simply pulling the stick left or right. Her thoughts sped up, and she tried something that could end badly.
Cutting the engines, she fired the maneuvering thrusters, pushing the nose of the Sabre up and over until she had rotated 180 degrees. Now, her canopy showed the Seraph baring down on her with its weapons blazing, and she returned the favor, her shield already glittering as more plasma started splashing across her shields.
Her finger pulled back on the firing stud for the autocannons, and the Sabre growled beneath her as the cannons roared their silent cry, tracers leaping out and shattering against the Seraph's silver shielding.
The two craft fired endlessly in the slowed down world that was Spartan Time. Both refused to relent, to wave off, to stop firing for even a second, and sooner or later, one of them would lose shielding.
For Morgan, it was a lucky day, and the silver lattice surrounding the Seraph snapped, shattering into nonexistence. The 30mm rounds started ripping into the front of the Seraph's hull, at least half of the tracers ricocheting off of the sloped frontal armor and spinning off into space, but for the rest, it didn't matter. Dozens of shots tore into the cockpit, shattering glass and smashing the pilot inside until he was nothing more than a cloud of purple blood and destroyed internals.
Then everything snapped back into place, and her maneuvering thrusters fired again at the same time as her main engines, the remains of the Seraph flashing past, spinning off into the nothingness as it disintegrated into hundreds of pieces and started to fall into the Ark's atmosphere.
Several warning alarms blared in her ears as she came back to the real world, her shields having been all but depleted with little more than a hair left in the shielding bar. She breathed a sigh of relief as the bar started to slowly fill back up, and she moved to reenter the fight.
Caesar, still dealing with the final Seraph on his end, was close to finishing the fight, and she moved to break the deadlock that was forming as the two fighters circled in an attempt to gain the upper hand when one or the other slipped up. Her missile lock tone chirped and four missiles shot out for the Seraph, mid turn, and smashed into the rear of the ship. It didn't break its shields, but it wasn't meant to.
With another craft in the fight, the Brute went evasive to try and defend against two instead of one, and it was already a loss for him as Caesar managed to get the nose of his Broadsword up just enough for the cannons to lock on, and more autocannon rounds jumped from the barrels to the Seraph, dropping the shields and smashing both engines into little more than expensive space debris, before he finished the target off with a salvo of missiles.
Forming up on his wing again, Morgan listened as he called out to Scoundrel. "We're done on our end. Everything alright, 2-1?" He sounded out of breath, a side effect of struggling against the forces of inertia in a heated battle against superior numbers. He had done well.
"Roger, couple got through, stopped them in their tracks when that monster of a gunship with us opened up on them. We're about to bust through the atmosphere, Sierra should be home free at this point."
"Stick with them until the retasking order comes through. We'll cover your way out."
"You got it, boss. Out."
Morgan watched out the left side of her cockpit, spotting the half dozen fireballs of Sierra and the second element of Ranger dropping into the artificial atmosphere around the Ark. Taking the time to look at it now, she was reminded of how everything on the last Halo installation had looked. It had almost felt natural, and if the ring hadn't been rising up above her, coming into a complete circle, she'd have thought it was all real. But that was just it. It was real, and knowing the Forerunners could create that, could create the Ark, so far outside of the Milky Way, it brought even more unsettling questions into her mind.
She pushed them all away, pushed them deep into the back of her mind with all the rest of the things that worried her in the darkness of her subconscious, and forced herself to forget about it all. Her eyes tore themselves away, and she locked them onto the cockpit displays.
Ammunition count was still reading green, not even a quarter of her total ordinance expended for either of her stocks, and her fuel gauge was still more than enough for prolonged operations. Engine temperature was still high, nothing to worry about.
"Hey Noble, you ever seen anything like this before?"
Caesar's question broke her from watching over the displays, and she looked up at his craft for a moment, before she went back to them. "Can't say that I have, Caesar."
He hummed through the channel, lazily flying around in an orbit around the area they had last contacted Ranger's second element. "Brings up a lot of questions about the universe, don't it? Why would anybody need something this big?"
She was put on the spot. She didn't know. She had no clue what this was for, other than to fire the rest of the rings. Was it a sanctuary? An area out of range of the rings? It brought another question to mind that echoed in her head. If it was out of range, would they be able to move Humanity here? Fire the rings and wipe out the Covenant and Flood, commit them to little more than ghosts in a history book that children read about a hundred years from now?
It's getting awfully dark in here, Morgan.
Kat's voice put the thoughts to bed for her, and she narrowed her eyes. What was this supposed to be? Was the other woman haunting her in an attempt to keep her Human? To keep the darkness at bay when it started creeping up on her from behind again?
It didn't matter. She pushed it all away, or Kat dragged it away from her, and set her thoughts on the mission again. These issues were making themselves apparent more and more, showing up at the worst times, getting to her in instances where it might get her or someone else killed.
"You alright over there? You're drifting."
Caesar's voice called out again, breaking the silence as she realized that she had indeed been drifting off, breaking out of the formation she had been holding. Pulling the stick and closing it up again, she responded. "I'm fine, just got caught up looking at it all."
Caesar didn't respond, and she was thankful for it. She looked at the space battle still raging, the two lines staying far apart and lobbing shots at each other. The Shadow of Intent, hanging in the center of the allied fleet, launched several plasma torpedoes, the bright red globs of plasma kept in a tight shape that hit a Loyalist ship directly amidships and ripping it in half. Then the Intent began to maneuver, enough that she saw part of the Forward Unto Dawn slip out from behind it before the UNSC frigate slipped back into the cover provided by the bigger ship's shielding, disappearing behind the carrier once more, only for a bright flash to materialize under the massive bow.
An instant later, a pencil thin beam of bright white light shot out from the Intent's forward energy projector, covering the distance between the Loyalist and Separatist fleets, piercing the shielding of one of the opposing assault carriers. With the firing of another set of maneuvering thrusters, the Intent's trajectory shifted, and the energy projector was drawn across the enemy carrier, slicing through it like a hot knife through butter. The assault carrier wasn't the only target, however, and with the momentum of the thrusters, it continued on its path of destruction, bisecting a CCS class battle cruiser before the white light thinned out, and finally ceased.
Secondary explosions went up all across the Brute carrier's frame, starting from the entry point for the energy projector and traveling from the inside out. Engines failed, shielding cracked and shattered, and the stress of the explosions blew the rest of the carrier's slender goose neck apart, the two parts of the carrier drifting before going up in a massive flare that left only chunks of the hull behind. The explosive force of the ship's detonation alone sent several smaller vessels that had been too close careening into their allies, a handful of ships disappearing inside of the blue-white and orange tinged fireball that was quickly snuffed out in the vacuum.
Several ships had lost shielding from the blast wave, and their hulls had been deformed by the intense heat of the blast, some still glowing white hot on their bow as glittering remnants were scattered amongst the remaining ships in a field of debris. More plasma torpedoes and swarms of archer missiles were lobbed into the weakened battle line, and more Loyalist ships fell victim to the withering barrage that the Sangheilli fleet was capable of bringing to bear. Single ships became little more than nuisances as allied Seraphs and Broadswords were sent on hunter-killer missions to annihilate whatever enemy fighters had strayed too far from their capital ships.
Morgan watched, her heart thumping in her chest and ears, as she saw firsthand what it was like to have the firepower of alien ships turned away from her for once, seeing how ruthlessly the Sangheilli had put down the Brute fleet, despite being outnumbered three to one. The brutality of it was a far cry from the honor that some Sangheilli had shown during the war, but it was no less devastating, and it chilled her to think of what it might have been like had the Sangheilli ever turned the dial up on Humanity during the war. They had been beholden to Prophets, to their religion, and now they were let loose against former masters with enough rage and hate to turn their enemy to glass with the force of their fury alone.
The communications suite chirped loudly, and Morgan waited for Caesar to answer it, but his voice never came. Hers would do. "Noble," she responded.
"Commander, return to the ship, Ranger is reforming and retasking, you're going to ground." It was Commander Keyes, her voice clipped and to the point.
"Yes ma'am. Status on the entry teams?"
"They're clearing an area of anti-aircraft guns, and the Dawn is going in to land. Autumn and Aegis Fate are breaking off to secure a landing zone for prolonged basing a hundred miles east, but we've learned the location of the Cartographer and need to offload heavier assets."
The Covenant fleet was in disarray, left as broken hulls or ships that were led by nothing more than a fragmented command structure, with commanders that were already subpar in space and the ground. Their strength did them no favors when the Sangheilli could sit back and rip them apart piece by piece from range.
Green eyes looked back to the broadsword next to her, and she decided to finish it up quick. "I'll be there soon. Noble out." The channel cut, switching back to the one shared by Ranger, and her words caught Caesar's ear. "I'm being retasked. Be careful, I won't be here to save you next time."
A snort on the other end. "Whatever you say Commander. Stay safe out there, and I'll see you again."
It was short, nothing more needed to be said. Neither knew each other well enough, or at all, really, to have a long dialogue, but Morgan had grown accustomed to teamwork again. Going to ground, she would be working with Marines, ODSTs, and likely the Master Chief.
She wondered what things would be like on the ground, having been detached from the rest of the battle net for the most part, and pulled on the stick, angling the Sabre towards the Dawn, already dipping its nose and heading for the surface.
The Sabre didn't suffer any rapid change in velocity, slipping into the rear hangar bay of the Dawn with a few jets of its maneuvering thrusters. Morgan was out of the fighter quickly, her rifle coming with her as she checked it over once again. Plenty could happen, and she wasn't fond of the idea of her weapon malfunctioning when she needed it most.
With the deck clear for the moment, maintenance workers in EVA suits swarmed across the hangar to secure the Sabre and start rearming and refueling it, just in case. Even if she wasn't here, someone would be able to fly it one way or another. It was like riding a bike, albeit one with more than a horn and two brake lines.
Slipping over the lip of the cockpit frame, she fell to the heavy decking below with a loud thud, and made for the doorway that led to the rest of the ship, the bridge in particular. Bright white lights filled the corridors, and the bulkheads were armed and ready, primed for shutting the instant an issue came up in the sector any one of them belonged to. If a fire broke out or the ship was holed, the damage would be contained immediately.
There were marines running for the holding areas short of the bays. Without energy shielding, the hangar was exposed to vacuum, and there weren't nearly enough EVA suits to go around. More than one pair of eyes roved over the golden visor as she ran past, her heavy armor brokering no argument as it claimed the majority of the corridor space for itself and the woman inside. Nothing would slow her down.
Doors parted and the corridors wound about in a steel labyrinth, stairs climbed higher into the skeleton of the ship, and finally the bridge came into view. A pair of Marines, armored and armed, stood guard outside with shotguns, and the mechanical gaze passed over her as an automated defense turret hung from the ceiling, tracking her every move.
The two Marines saluted, but she didn't return it, blowing past them and into the bridge as soon as the doors parted enough for her to enter. Naval personnel sat at consoles, voices filling the air as they coordinated the movements of all three frigates and their aerospace assets. Dull red lighting replaced the bright white that the rest of the ship was bathed in, and Commander Miranda Keyes peered over her shoulder as the younger woman entered the bridge.
"Noble Six, you move fast."
"I aim to please."
Keyes hummed, turning back to look at the holographic displays on the small space that her command chair's arms offered, and the multitude of camera displays and windows showed the Ark rising up to meet them, as if the arms would close like giant petals and swallow the frigate whole. "And I'm eternally grateful for that. Situation on the ground is clearing up, multiple AA defense zones neutralized by the Master Chief and the Marine force on the ground. Sierra made it through with few problems, thanks to Ranger's work."
Morgan was relieved. At least that had gone to plan, despite the loss Sierra had taken. "You said the Dawn was landing?"
"Not exactly. Less of a landing and more of a drop off. Scorpions and Gauss Warthogs are being moved into the bay to be offloaded and push towards the Cartographer. That's where you come in. You'll be leading the armored offensive, covering the Master Chief on the ground while he works through the internals. You're as steely a leader as any, and those Marines could use you now more than anything."
Keyes' eyes returned to the Ark, knowing that most of the Humans onboard were seeing something that was new, unbelievable, and even more alien than the Covenant. There was no telling what was down there, and while the ground forces hadn't run into anything indigenous to the area except the caretaker Sentinels, she wasn't looking forward to meeting any more alien life.
"I'll get it done, ma'am."
"I know you will."
Morgan crossed her arms, moving to stand behind Keyes' command chair and look over her shoulder. The displays all showed more variables than even she could count, sensors feeding a near limitless supply of data through to the half dozen stations on the bridge, readings for the quickly thickening atmosphere and the composition of the air, the makeup of the Ark itself, and far more keeping a quick finger on the Dawn's heartbeat as the reactor ebbed and flowed like an ocean with the power it needed to output.
Bridge crew called back and forth to each other and Keyes, everybody doing their job perfectly. They were the best the Navy had to offer, and Morgan knew they would all be needed before the end of this.
The greens, blues, and browns of the land below filled the view they were given, expanding out until the blue oceans disappeared, and then the green plains and forests, before all that was left was the brown canyons that dozens of UNSC Marines had been dumped into. The Dawn rumbled as the atmosphere continued to grow thicker, until it started to level out and the powerful engines reversed their thrust to slow the frigate down.
Keyes took the ship's intercomm in hand, giving a warning before things got too hairy. "All hands, brace for deceleration and prepare for atmospheric operations."
Morgan's magnetic boots locked her down, and she stood as still as a statue, despite the changing orientation of the frigate, but Keyes and the rest of the crew were forced to hold tight to their stations. More than one crewman somewhere on the ship would be eating the deck, regardless of the warning that had gone out.
On the ground, a pair of Warthogs sat waiting, oily black smoke trails curling into the sky from the burnt out corpses of several anti-air Wraiths and numerous destroyed Ghosts. The figures on the ground were too small for Morgan to catch as the Dawn kicked up a sandstorm with the air it was displacing, moving as quickly as it was, but Morgan didn't need to worry, already turning on her heel without another word and making for the hangar bay.
It was a short trip, her boots echoing off of the deck in that rhythmic pattern that she had memorized long ago, and the bulkhead doors split open when she got close enough. She was met with the sight of several Scorpion Main Battle Tanks being moved into position on the three cargo elevators that had moved into place where the Pelicans and fighters had dropped through.
Marines and deck crew were ensuring that everything went smoothly, the roar of the Scorpions' engines and a few more Warthogs filled the air, and the Dawn came to a stop. Stepping onto the decking, several glances were sent her way as the personnel working the deck saw another Spartan preparing to enter the battlespace.
One of the Scorpions was crewed already, but had an open slot on the machine gun turret that sat to the right of the crew hatch, and Morgan claimed it for herself. It wasn't as if anybody would stop her, after all.
Sliding into the turret and pulling the charging handle back on the M247T machine gun, satisfied as it gave off a loud click and slid forward, the first bullet of the ammo belt sliding into place. The rest of the belt led down into the hull, where a massive box held the rest of the ammo. She wouldn't be running out any time soon.
To her left, she rapped on the top of the cockpit hatch, and it slid back and hinged upward to show a female Marine wearing the sound proofed helmet of a tanker, freckles dusting her face and orange hair peeking out under the rim of the helmet. She looked at the Spartan, squinting as if confused, lips parted slightly, and it dawned on her who her new machine gunner was. Dipping back into the hull, she hit the communications gear, sending a handshake to Morgan's armor, and it was accepted as the crew compartment's hatch closed.
When the tanker's voice came through the speakers in her helmet, she winced. The sound of it grated on her ears, and she spoke with a Scottish accent that was thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. "Pleasure to be havin' ya, ma'am." The pronunciation of ma'am brought something to mind, an echo that reminded Morgan of Jorge, and how the big man's own accent had been another of his endearing qualities.
"Pleasure is mine, trooper, as long as you know how to drive decently."
A scoff sounded as the light from the outside world filtered in and the cargo elevators lowered the half dozen tanks to the ground. "Aye, I can drive, ma'am. I'll do a handfull'o donuts for ye when I get the chance. You'll never wanna ride with anyone else, I promise."
Morgan smiled slightly behind her helmet, despite it all. The trooper was confident, at least, and she was quick with her wit. "Who am I riding with, anyway?"
"Sergeant Leslie Ferguson, 7th Armored, Radio callsign is Armadillo, tank shares the name."
"Copy. I'll keep you safe." Morgan checked her weapon again and felt the Scorpion jolt underneath her, the elevator coming to a stop against the dusty ground. The Warthogs had already rocketed off of the elevators, massive tires causing dirt and sand to blow up in fish tails behind them. One of the Warthogs with a gauss cannon had already been taken over by the Master Chief, the green giant planted in the rotating circular plate that acted as the firing position for the cannon. "One moment, Armadillo. Follow the Hogs, you're lead armor for now."
"Aye, ma'am."
With a switch and another call, she had her counterpart on the line. "Master Chief, status."
"Green, ma'am." His gravely tone was the same as always, barely changed despite what must have been hectic fighting on the ground.
"Anything to report?"
"Objective has been moved into a valley on the opposite side of the ridge to our right. There's an entryway through the mountains that we can get the tanks through. I'll have to dismount to open the interior for you with the help of the Monitor."
"The monitor?" She had a suspicion that she had already met this monitor, but waited for more.
"Yes ma'am. The Elites referred to it as the 'Oracle'."
"The blue ball that tried to fix Cortana."
"Affirmative."
"Understood. You're running point then, Chief. I've got your back." The channel cut out, and rather than respond with his words, the green status light on Morgan's HUD winked to life, before it went dark again and the Warthog in the lead of the new convoy that had formed led the way up and through a cave.
The cave sheltered them from the sun, and the sound of the vehicles echoed off of the stone walls, becoming a deafening cacophony that would have deafened Morgan's sensitive ears, but her helmet automatically dampened the noise.
She frowned, looking up and around at the interior. Even having been on Halo herself, the sheer size and scale of the installation that she was trundling across was awe inspiring, and had she not been on it at that moment, she would have laughed off the notion of something like this existing the way it did.
You take me to such nice places. A shame that I'm dead and all, you know?
Morgan's breath caught in her throat as Kat came up in her mind again. It quickly turned to a low growl as she muttered for her sister's ghost to pick any other time to come back, clenched teeth making it more of a hiss.
Any reply that Kat had was drowned out by the teeth rattling crack of the Master Chief's gauss cannon firing on something.
"Contact." The gravelly reply was heard by all of those in the convoy, Marines in the Warthogs and the Scorpions preparing to engage as they crested the hill, the Warthogs breaking formation and hurtling past on either side of Ferguson's Scorpion.
The MBT pushed up and over the curve in the ground, flat land leading to a ridge that ran along the outside of a canyon, the interior dropping a dozen feet. The far side of the canyon was artificial, or more artificial than the surrounding landscape. A steel colored structure jutted out from the canyon's wall, blue highlights moving up and down the structure's rib-like supports. A team of Wraiths, several Ghosts, and a pair of heavy plasma cannons sat waiting on the bridge that was held under the structure. The Ghosts had already broke off, dropping into the depression and engaging the Warthogs that met them head on.
Morgan's hand pointed off to the left, giving the order to follow the ridge line and provide supporting fire and keep from closing with the Wraiths. Armadillo did as she was ordered, and the other Scorpions followed close behind, turrets all swiveling to find targets.
The first shell was fired from behind, slamming into a Ghost and ripping it in half with the force of the round's explosion. Another shot from Armadillo was fired at a second Ghost, but failed to hit. Plasma bolts from the plasma cannons shot out in a withering barrage that splashed against the hulls of the tanks, scorching the armor. One was a lucky hit, a Marine a few tanks back getting hit in the chest and ripped apart by the blast, his corpse sinking into the machine gun turret's slot.
"Armadillo, this is Anvil, my machine gunner is down."
"I hear you, Anvil. Commander did too. Just don't stop, focus fire on the emplacements and then move on to the Wraiths. Hogs can deal with the Ghosts."
Morgan frowned, the distance between her and the emplacements being somewhat large, but she turned the turret anyway and pulled back on the trigger. The gun shook in her hands, the armor dampening the recoil somewhat, and she walked the bright yellow tracers across the left most emplacement. Bullets pinged off of the armor, until a few lucky hits shredded the Grunt that had been manning the controls, a jet of bright blue letting the Spartan know she had pulped her target completely and silenced one of the guns. The other was hit soon after, a 90mm HE shell from the Scorpion that had lost the machine gunner impacting at the base of the turret and flipping it through the air. The Grunt gunner was stuck inside, however, and when the turret came back down, the diminutive alien was crushed beneath the emplacement's weight, more of the bright blue blood pooling around it within seconds.
The ridge's turn had a path leading down into the depression, and Morgan made note of it, but kept Ferguson moving on. Giving up the height advantage against Wraiths would be a bad idea. "Focus the Wraiths before they zero us in!"
Already, the shots from the Wraiths had been closing on the convoy, another heavy blue ball of plasma from one of the plasma mortars impacting against the wall and raining molten rock and globules of glass down on Morgan's armor. She ignored it, shifting the machine gun in her hands to aim at one of the Ghosts in the depression below.
Opening fire again, she riddled the purple fast attack craft with armor piercing rounds, the Brute in the saddle attempting to shift and evade the fire. Morgan wouldn't let him get away, and her accuracy was evidence to that, but she wouldn't claim the kill herself. A thin blue-white line shot through the Ghost's frontal armor and pierced through to the driver, killing both the vehicle and the Brute inside.
Shifting her gaze, the Gauss Warthog the Master Chief stood on roared past the remains of the vehicle before it blew, and she narrowed her eyes. He was good, better than her in a sense, but she was glad to have him. He would be an incredibly powerful asset on the field with his experiences.
Ferguson fired again, the cannon's shockwave washing over her as the round sent downrange plowed into the frontal armor of the Wraith. It exploded before the sound of the ejecting shell casing hit the dirt, crushed beneath the treads of the next tank in the line.
"All enemy vehicles wiped out, entrance is clear." Ferguson's voice filled her ears, and she nodded to herself.
Opening a channel to the main force, she gave her next orders. "Master Chief, it's your show now. We'll wait for you to open the gates. Vehicles move into the depression and wait near the bottom level of the gate. The Chief and the little blue bulb he has with him are about to pick the lock for us."
The Scorpions came to a halt, the treads grinding and creaking underneath and kicking up a cloud of dust as they rotated in place and Ferguson's tank led them down into the depression. The Warthog ferrying the Master Chief rumbled past them, moving up onto the ridge and the artificial bridge to get to the upper level of the gate's entrance, coming to a screeching halt and letting him off.
The Warthog returned to the fold, a Marine leaving one of the Scorpions turrets and taking the Spartan's place. The rest of the convoy filed into place, spreading out around the area and looking to the multiple entrances to the canyon in case of unwanted visitors.
Her comms suite crackled and a Marine called to her. "Commander, incoming Phantom, one of ours. Orders?"
Morgan looked skyward, a Phantom painted in the deep green that they had all taken after throwing away the Covenant's purple. She bit the inside of her lip, green eyes roving over it for a few moments as it came in and slowed to a stop next to the upper level. "Leave it alone. There's gotta be a good reason they're throwing in with us when there's this much firepower here."
She was right, and the comm stayed quiet. The side door to the Phantom dropped open and a squad of black armored Sangheilli special operations personnel leaped onto the platform, followed closely by the Arbiter himself. The floor was glass, allowing her to keep looking up as they linked up with the Spartan and the fluttering blue orb that was seemingly always around them.
The group conversed among themselves, but she didn't hear any of it, and they disappeared into the structure without a word to her or the rest of the convoy, and the Phantom bugged out just as soon as it had shown up. It would have been useful, but she wasn't going to call for it to come back.
The Marines around her were all hardened veterans, drawn from the toughest they had to be deployed against the strongest Covenant presence that had been on Earth, but they were all looking around, faces carved from stone, and fingers slowly rubbing against triggers to scratch an itchy they dare not act on without an alien in sight.
"At least the place is shaded..." Ferguson muttered over the comms channel.
"Shade my ass, place is covered by a glass ceiling. At least you've got a closed up tank with A/C in it." Another Marine called from the back of a Warthog, gun still traversing the sky in case of enemy air attack.
"Ain't it great, the comforts of modern technology?" Ferguson's wit was as quick as her finger on the trigger, and Morgan felt a half smile tug at her lips. She would like to let it keep going, to prevent Kat from coming back in the silence, but she knew what she had to do, and she knew that Kat wouldn't care regardless.
"Cut the chatter, Marines. Stay focused. We've made it this far and I don't need any more of you getting hit because you're focused on your words."
Nobody responded, but a few Marines glanced over at her, sunken into the hull of the tank with her hands still guiding the gun into a lazy arc across the sky.
None of them were troopers she had fought with on the ground, but cobbled together from forces that had taken enough losses to be completely annihilated and then reformed into a hodgepodge convoy of armor assets. Most of them didn't know each other, save for the odd pair of Marines that were holdovers of shattered forces. They knew of her, however, and had heard her words in response to Hood.
You've got a Spartan on the ground.
They were with a Spartan, one of the last to enter a battlespace during the Human-Covenant War, the greatest trial ever witnessed by mankind. She would get them through. She would inspire them. She would be the burning torch that guided them through that dark night that Hood was so worried about, and with the massive gate in front of them creaking open as millenia of dust was knocked loose, they followed her into the first of many dark places in the final hours of that God forsaken war.
The flood lights on the front of the Scorpion lit up, bringing something standard and white to the lighting provided only by the blue insets that were scattered across the Ark's internals. Morgan's own helmet lamps and the light assembly on the Warthogs turned on to provide even more illumination in a place that felt rubbed at the last Noble's instincts. Something was wrong, or it would be wrong. What it was, she could only wait to see it.
Ferguson kept the Scorpion moving slowly, cannon pointed straight ahead while the others covered other fields of fire. Warthogs growled quietly as they traveled on either side of the armor column, the corridor they had gone into being large enough for them to travel three tanks abreast and have room to spare if it was needed.
Her motion tracker was filled with silhouettes of the vehicles, all of them a reassuring yellow. At least they weren't finding more Covie troopers hidden in the corridor. It had been the same sight for most of the trip, and they had spent several minutes driving now. There was no telling how much further it went.
Then the other dots popped up on her motion tracker, half a dozen yellow icons showing their advance force. They were close by, and a massive door rose out of the darkness and the gloom, the powerful lights playing over it and bathing it in their glow.
A groan, a jumpy reaction from more than one of the Marines, and the door split open, showing a massive chasm that was empty save for the two outcroppings that sat waiting. Morgan frowned deeply, fearing they had run into a dead end.
Hoisting herself up, she looked over at the yellow dots, scanning until they showed as directly ahead, but nothing was there. Looking up, she jerked as Ferguson stopped the tank, but caught sight of the bulky figure of the Master Chief on a ledge that ran from one door to another before it disappeared into the walls.
Clicking her comms, she called out to him. "You find anything, Master Chief?"
"Affirmative. A bridge will get you across, and should take you outside after another corridor."
"A bridge?" Morgan frowned again, looking to the chasm ahead. There wasn't anything that looked like it would slide out and let them across, no swinging system to get something in place. "You sure about that?"
"Affirmative."
His reply was short, leading her to look up at him again. His weapon was held down at his side, his fingers gliding across a holographic console as the Elite strike team with him watched his back, the Arbiter looking over the Spartan's shoulder to watch his moves.
A heavy thud filled the air, and she looked for the source, but light at the corner of her eye caught her attention. A rainbow of color had filled in the gap between the outcroppings, looking just like a bridge. She didn't trust it.
"...I'm not liking the look of this, Chief."
"It should hold your weight. I've interacted with these types of bridges before. Trust me."
Morgan clenched her jaw. She would trust him, but only so much. Disembarking from the tank, she hoisted herself out of the turret position and over the side, walking to the front.
"Uh… ma'am?" Ferguson's worried voice filtered in, and Morgan looked back with her hand up to stall any further questions.
Stepping out and onto the bridge, she pressed her armored boot against it, testing the weight, and then the other, until her full weight was on it and there was no sign of it breaking. Slowly, she moved forward again, looking back to gesture Armadillo and the other tanks and vehicles across one by one. The engines purred, reverberating off of the metal walls and filling the air as the first tank rolled across the bridge.
It didn't break, or crack, or even fade, and with the entirety of Armadillo on the bridge, Morgan was certain that it would all be fine. She spared one more look up at the Master Chief and winked her green status light. His only reply was to flash his own, a solid green burning against her HUD, before he turned and moved through the next door with his team close behind.
The vehicles kept moving across, and Morgan walked back to Armadillo and stepped up onto the tread cover as it began its push through the next set of doors and into another blacked out corridor. Sliding into her gunner position again, she allowed herself to relax slightly.
"Let's not ever do that again? Please?"Ferguson's voice was thick with her accent and her relief that she hadn't been dropped into a bottomless pit on an ancient alien megastructure.
"No promises, Sergeant." As much as she would have liked to, she couldn't promise that it wouldn't happen again, because as far as she knew, every other corridor would be just like this one, however stupid of a design idea it would have been in her eyes.
The convoy kept moving through the dark, and Morgan heard the door shut behind the last Scorpion with a loud clang, causing her to look back and frown again. Her face was starting to hurt with how often it came about. There was nothing she could do now, though, except keep moving forward to the end.
It wasn't long, fortunately, and the next set of doors rose out of the darkness, sliding open as the tanks approached and letting in a blinding light that promised salvation from the interior.
Ferguson rolled Armadillo out and into the sunlight once again, and the sound of static filled Morgan's ears as she reconnected to the main battlenet.
"-mmander, do you read me? Commander!" Sergeant Major Avery Johnson was calling to her, and she answered quickly.
"I hear you, Johnson, what happened while I was off the grid?"
Urgency was in his voice, and his answer sent a chill up her spine. "Scarab, about to pass right over top of you!"
Morgan's mind had only just begun to process it when a shadow covered the convoy again, a massive Scarab stepping over the convoy and digging its feet into the Forerunner metal.
"Scarab! Watch where it plants its legs and try not to get crushed!" Even while Ferguson cursed into her ear and the convoy split up into multiple individual units, the bright blue balls that belonged to Wraiths started to fall all around them. They had been caught out, the Covenant waiting for them in the open where they had already set up, rather than engage them in the close quarters corridors where Scorpions would trash the heavy mortar vehicles.
The roar of the Scorpion cannons was deafening, her helmet automatically compensating as she shifted her machine gun to fire on the alien troopers that covered the walker's deck. It shuddered in her grasp, the ammunition belt rattling against the weapon's steel sides as it fed from the ammunition canister, with the number transmitting into her HUD's top right corner shrinking by the second. She had thousands of rounds to call on, but if things got any more hairy, she wondered if they would be enough.
Another thunderclap as the 90mm cannon on Armadillo sent a high explosive shell into the support structure for the Scarab's anti-aircraft gun on the rear deck. It must have been a lucky shot, as coolant started to leak from it, and then plasma following soon after, but that didn't stop it. More fire came from the anti-aircraft gun, drooling like a rabid dog as it fired until it would likely overload and shut down.
The massive walker turned to her, its cannon fixing on Armadillo's position, and it started to shine bright green as it prepared to fire. "Bail! Bail out!"
Her cry to Ferguson as she hoisted herself up wasn't enough, the canopy failing to raise fast enough for her to get out, and she almost grabbed the canopy and tore it off with her own two hands when a shadow passed overhead.
Looking up, a dark green Phantom flew into the battle's airspace, going evasive as the Scarab's anti-aircraft battery tried to acquire it, and it pelted the Scarab with purple plasma fire that had the main gun shift off of Armadillo and its stricken driver.
The Phantom juked and jinked and dived, until finally it passed over the walker, and then she saw what was happening. Several Elites, led by the Arbiter himself and the Master Chief close behind, dove from the open side doors with energy swords lit and engaged the Brutes on the deck.
The Phantom continued to circle the Scarab, the main plasma battery on its underside engaging the several remaining Covenant vehicles on the ground.
"Ferguson, you alright?" She called out to the driver, and she could hear the worry in her voice, her accent thickening as her life had just flashed before her eyes.
"Aye, 'm alright, jus' a wee bit… oh shite, I nearly filled me pants with that one." There was a pause, and then the sound of a slap. "Okay! Alright! I'm good, let's keep goin'!"
Morgan nodded to herself, her eyes on the Scarab again. "Good, leave the Scarab to the Chief and the Elites, deal with the rest of the ground forces, and we'll open a path to the Cartographer." The sloping plains they had ridden out on ended abruptly several hundred meters ahead, meeting a massive ocean that crawled off into the distance before the Ark's arms sloped up and off into space. On the right, a structure made of the same material that the interior of the corridor they used to pass through the mountain had been made of rose out of the dusty plains. That would be where the Cartographer was.
"Aye ma'am, engaging. Anvil! What's your status?"
Anvil's commander came over the net, voice strained as a warning alarm filled his cabin. "It's getting a little hot in here, Armadillo! We lost Slammer when the Scarab showed up and two of the hogs were smashed! Scopes show three Wraiths and half a dozen Ghosts left!"
Morgan entered the channel herself, giving out another set of orders as she scanned the battlefield. Anvil was down the slope, missing half of his tread pod armor slats and several burning holes in his armor glowed red hot, but his cannon was still going. Another tank, likely Slammer, was a crumpled mess, burning and crackling as its ammunition cooked off inside. Three more tanks were scattered across the battlefield, firing on the move as their machine gunners tried to hold off the Ghosts that were making rapid passing attacks to try and get lucky hits. Another Wraith went up in a flash of blue as Armadillo put a round straight through its forward slope, plasma leaking out and off to the sides to turn the dusty ground into a puddle of glass.
"All tanks, focus the Wraiths, we can handle the Ghosts piece by piece after that. Machine gunners, drop into the hull and try not to expose yourselves more than you have to."
A chorus of affirmatives responded, and Morgan's head turned as she heard more warning alarms wailing, the Scarab behind her dropping to the ground as all four legs went into a failsafe mode in case of power loss or leg damage. The Phantom that had dropped off the strike team returned quickly, hovering near the Scarab as they all retreated from it, and then pulled away at best speed to continue its air support.
"The Scarab is gonna go up! Everybody get clear if you aren't already!" She called out, watching it flash and leak globs of plasma from its damaged weapons systems. The alarm reached a fever pitch, wailing louder and louder, before the Scarab finally went up in a massive flash of blue and orange, scattering pieces of armor and debris to the four winds before coming down in a hail of metal.
Another voice filled the airwaves, a deep chuckle sounding along with it as the Shadow of Intent's shipmaster spoke up. "Impressive work, Spartan. I saw that explosion from orbit. We have finished Truth's fleet, and it is nothing more than ruins. Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums."
The Shadow of Intent, descending into the atmosphere at extreme range, was closing on their position. The Shipmaster had done well in annihilating the Loyalist navy.
The Forward Unto Dawn had done something similar, and as it passed over the plains that had become a battlefield, the close in defense systems opened up, multiple heavy caliber cannons engaging the remains of the Covenant's ground forces. Massive slugs smashed into the top of the Wraiths that remained, and small missiles were launched at the Ghosts, wiping the rest of the Covenant forces off the face of the Ark in this region.
It lowered itself to the ground, the hangar bays opening up and letting what was left of the convoy return to the interior of the ship and unload. Ferguson eased Armadillo onto the elevators, the engine shuddering to a halt as it lifted back up into the frigate. Off towards the structure that had risen out of the ground, Morgan saw the Phantom carrying the Master Chief offload him again halfway up the slope, before the frigate's hangar obscured him once again.
The Spartan hoisted herself from the Scorpion, sitting on the armor for a moment as she looked over at the hatch that covered Ferguson. It remained sealed, but she saw a fist knocking against the viewport. Raising an eyebrow, Morgan reached over, grasping the front of the hatch and making an indent in it, and pulled it up with a grunt.
Inside, Ferguson popped her head out slowly, looking up at the hatch, then following the arm back to Morgan. Her face was sweaty, her hair matted down against her face where it peeked out from under the helmet's rim. "Appreciate the help, Commander."
Morgan merely nodded, standing and sliding down the armor's slope and onto one of the tread pods, before hitting the deck below. Looking around, she saw several Pelicans had returned, her Sabre had been stowed in another area, and the three Broadswords of Ranger flight were still being serviced before being put away. She would find the squadron later, but not yet.
Waving to Ferguson as the woman climbed out and sprawled against the Scorpion's hull, she set off for the bridge.
The Marine guard covering the bridge saluted Morgan as she closed on it, and the Spartan returned it, the door sliding open in front of her and allowing entrance to the bridge.
Inside, Keyes was still planted firmly in the commander's chair, but her hair was messy and her skin shone with the same sheen of sweat that Ferguson had showed. The other woman looked back over her shoulder, giving a half smile for only a moment. "Good work down there, Commander. The Master Chief is making his way through to the Cartographer now, and the Aegis Fate and Ode to Autumn are halfway through securing a more appropriate basing zone."
Morgan crossed her arms, standing next to Keyes and looking out at the Shadow of Intent, moving closer by the second. "How did the space battle go?"
Keyes only shook her head. "It was a slaughter. The Elites smashed everything that was thrown at them, no ships lost, but a few are heavily damaged. The Intent fought off multiple enemy cruisers more than once, and I don't think I ever saw its shields pop."
"At least they're on our side now," Morgan responded, her helmet coming off and hooking to her belt.
"True. I got a message from Ranger for you, said you can fly with them any time after how you performed earlier."
A snort. "I was good enough to get another invitation?"
Keyes smiled, more genuine this time. "You could say that."
She was stopped from any further conversation, the communications officer turning back in his chair, a hand to one of the cups of his headset. "Ma'am! The Master Chief reports they've found the Cartographer, sending armor telemetry and scan data through now!"
"Put it on the main displays, Lieutenant."
He did as he was told, and Keyes stood as she saw the front displays light up with information that scrolled past faster than most could read it. A diagram of the Ark showed up as well, an icon on it flashing before zooming in and revealing a section near the center had been cut off by a massive wall.
Keyes frowned, looking back to the officer. "What is this? A barrier or defense?"
"Yes ma'am, the monitor is saying that it's a barrier Truth put up. Impenetrable, no way to drop it yet. We- wait one… The Master Chief reports he's been found and engaged."
The comms suite sounded again, directly from Keyes' chair. "Commander, we're close enough to pick him up, but there's a whole mess of Covie air inbound." Johnson, at the helm of one of the Pelicans.
"Push through if you can. We need to evac him and find out what all he's learned in detail. Retasking several Hornets to provide support as well."
"I'll get him. Johnson out."
Keyes pointed to the Flight Ops officer. "You heard him, get a flight of Hornets moving, and send an extra flight of Pelicans to get the rest of the Elites out."
The officer did as he was told, fingers flying across his keyboard and his mouth relaying the orders she had given.
With little else to do, Morgan frowned, and Keyes saw it. "Something wrong?"
Morgan pursed her lips. "I'm used to being sent out on the front. Standing here while the Chief does all the heavy lifting with the team of Elites? It doesn't feel right, I guess."
Keyes sat back down in the command chair, frowning slightly. "Burden of command and all that. Although, I've never met a Spartan that was higher ranked than the Chief, or really many Spartans at all other than him."
Morgan looked down at her. "There were others with higher ranks, one even a full commander, to ensure his orders wouldn't be countermanded, but he..." She paused. The order to prevent Spartan deaths from becoming public knowledge ringing in her mind somewhere. "I lost contact with him when Reach fell."
Keyes looked up at her, and her frown grew. "Would you be more comfortable leading from the front like that, then?"
Green eyes dropped to look into another pair. "I would."
"Then it's settled. Get back to the hangar, the Pelicans haven't left yet, and if you're fast enough, you can hitch a ride."
Morgan's helmet was back on her head in a flash, and she was gone. Keyes, her eyes back on the frontal viewport, passing along the Shadow of Intent's curved features, let herself take a moment to think on the Spartan that had been given partial command of this whole thing, before another alert came through and she responded to it, the moment of downtime gone and the war back on for her.