As Jack went through the portal, he thought.
He had done so much, in so little time, it felt absurd. And to think, all of this started when Captain Lastimosa, a legendary master-class Pilot, decided to take him, a Rifleman - just another grunt on the battlefield - under his wing to train as a Pilot.
He still felt the disbelief and guilt from when he had died. Died protecting him, no less, and with his dying breath, he gave him, still just a Rifleman, control over his Titan.
He didn't think he was anywhere near ready, but he'd be damned if he didn't honour his mentor's legacy.
So he put on Lastimosa's Jump-Kit and helmet, and set out to retrieve batteries for BT-7274, with only his minimal VR training to keep him from going splat after hitting a wall at speeds many times higher than a normal person could achieve.
Within BT, to begin with at least, Cooper had felt invincible. Like he could take on the best the planet had to offer, and come out on top. The frequent close-calls had changed his opinions, as had the many situations where he'd been forced to disembark to complete something he couldn't while within BT.
The closest calls had all been against Blisk's Lieutenants. Each skill Pilots in their own right, none were easy to defeat, and they had forced Cooper closer to death than he'd ever like to admit. But it forced him to adapt, to be faster, and to improve. He could now move with the confidence of a master Pilot, in and out of his Titan, and friend, BT-7274.
The Arc still confused him. Some super powerful energy source the IMC had discovered, that had the ability to warp time and space. The IMC had planned to unleash its power upon Harmony, the Militia's home planet, but fortunately, they had been able to stop it before it got off-world, in a manner that should have been enough to kill them, along with the planet itself.
Instead, they ended up here.
A flash of light later, and Cooper exited the portal, finding himself in a hallway, stylised like the 'Promethean' structures he had seen earlier.
The Master Chief stood a couple steps ahead of him, and upon seeing his arrival, began down the hallway.
"So where are we now?" Cooper asked.
"We're back where Chief and I got dropped off when we portaled from the surface," Cortana answered, "We should be able to take another portal from here to the other beam pylon,"
They reached the end of the hallway, and a door opened, and Jack found himself now perpendicular to the planet's 'surface'.
The large floating orb at the centre of the planet now sat directly in front of him, instead of directly above.
From the right, and only the right, came a giant purple beam of light, connecting and dispersing across the massive sphere.
And then, in the empty space on the left side, a portal appeared. A blue-white hole, with a deep black centre, opened like a tear in space itself. Then another opened… and another.
From these humongous portals, out shot three massive ships, with a multitude of smaller ones alongside them.
Jack gaped. They were so stupendously large. A kilometre in length, at the very least, and much more if they were further away than he thought.
"I was wondering why the Infinity hadn't encountered the Covenant yet," Cortana said.
This was the Covenant? Hadn't they been defeated?
Cortana, seemingly already knowing what he was going to ask, spoke, "These Covenant aren't outfitted like Covenant we've faced in the past. My leading theory is that this is a splinter group of the Covenant," Cortana explained.
If a splinter group had ships of that size, Jack could nearly believe that they had killed over 20 billion people. It also made him wonder about how humanity had not only managed to survive, but come out victorious.
"What are they doing here?" Chief asked as another portal opened on the left size of the large platform.
"They're heading for the second pylon as well," Cortana answered.
"That can't be a coincidence," Chief mused.
Chief and Cooper stepped through the portal, and were immediately greeted with the sounds of combat. Gunfire, growls, and more were audible in the rundown hallway they found themselves in, the walls and ceiling blending into rock, like it had been constructed within a cave.
"Sounds like the Prometheans don't want the Covenant here, either," Cortana said, voice tense, "The battlenet's already lighting up with reports of resistance all around the pylon," she informed.
"Then we'd better get moving," Cooper said, to which Master Chief nodded, "How far is BT?" he continued.
"Pilot," came the Titan across the radio, "I am currently too far away to rendezvous without taking significant damage to my armour and chassis. Protocol 2: Uphold the mission. You should continue without me to disable the pylon until such a time as we may safely re-Link,"
Jack frowned. It would be much more difficult without BT's impressive firepower, but it seemed they'd have to proceed separately.
"Got it BT," he responded, "Keep yourself out of trouble whenever you can," he said, cutting off the transmission, and turning back to the Chief, "Alright. Let's go,"
Chief nodded, and took the lead down the hallway and up through the cave. The cave lead to a hole, which seemed to continue into another arm of the cave. Seeing no other option, they dropped through, and after a few more steps, exited the cave into a small clearing.
Three loud thumps suddenly echoed around the area as three purple pods, all smooth lines and flowing curves, hit the ground just ahead of them. Three panels lifted on each, and out stepped aliens.
They must have been the covenant, Jack concluded. The colour and shape of the pods held many similarities with the gigantic motherships he had seen approaching the pylon.
The first creature he took note of was short and stocky, with a large hump on its back extending above its small head. An Unggoy, or Grunt, BT identified through Cooper's Head's Up Display, highlighting the creature with a red outline.
Many of the Grunts stepped out of the pods, and immediately began firing upon the Promethean forces that had shown up to resist. Some fired fast traveling, green orbs of super-heated plasma out of small handheld pistols, while others fired long, slow moving, pink crystals from larger pistols with more of the pink crystals protruding from it.
As he watched, he noticed a burst of pink crystals curve in the air to intercept a dodging Knight. Homing. He'd have to watch out for them.
The second alien species he saw was what really worried Jack. Taller than even the Master Chief, with a lean figure, wearing smooth armour plating, and with powerful, reptilian limbs, they looked to be the apex of apex predators.
A Sangheili, or Elite, BT informed. Jack agreed with the name. They certainly looked to be the 'Elites' of the battlefield.
As he watched, the Elite reared back, showing off the twin mandibles it had instead of a lower jaw as it opened its mouth a let free a deep, booming roar.
The Prometheans responded with gunfire, and the Elite ducked into cover as a flash of electricity spread across its skin, signifying that its personal shield had withstood the attack, though had suffered from it.
Chief engaged, putting a burst into the distracted Elite. It reacted admirably, turning before the three-round burst had completed, though still not fast enough. The first two rounds of Chief's next burst shattered its shield, while the third destroyed the inside of its head, and it collapsed, dead.
Jack sprang into action, launching himself at the left wall, and taking three steps across it before jumping off, towards and above the surprised Covenant.
"The Demon!" screeched one of the Grunts as it noticed the Master Chief, which only served to draw their attention away from their rapidly approaching death from above.
Cooper pulled the trigger on his R-201, the high rate-of-fire carbine shredding the unsuspecting Grunt. He switched targets as he began to fall, killing another Grunt before he hit the ground in a slide, his Jump-Kit propelling him along the floor as he fired at a third Grunt, rotating as he slid past the stationary target.
He launched into another jump out of the slide as he switched his weapon, the R-201's magazine having emptied completely. His leg hit the purple drop-pod, and kicked off as he rotated in the air, his other foot coming down on the head of a scrambling Elite.
It staggered back, its shield holding. It didn't, however, withstand the point-blank Scattershot to the chest, and the Elite immediately died, its body evaporating into glowing orange polygons before it even hit the ground.
The remaining two Grunts were dispatched with precise shots from the Chief, as he watched the Pilot decimate their forces, before reloading his rifle, with great interest. The smaller warrior's mobility was astounding, even with the information Cortana had provided him, and he had a feeling he was just beginning to see what he was capable of.
Another roar was heard, this one more akin to a mechanical screech, unlike the Elite's guttural howl. Master Chief ducked into cover as the two Knights began firing upon him, before returning fire to keep their attention away from the Pilot.
Cooper capitalised on it. He jumped at the drop-pod again, kicked off it towards another, jumped in the air with his Jump-Kit, hit the other pod, took a couple of steps across its smooth armour and leapt towards the Knights, who stood atop a raised area of rock.
The Knight on the left swung its sword arm at him as he landed, but aimed too high, as the Pilot slid smoothly underneath it, popping a Scattershot into its torso, resulting in a shattered shield. The other Knight swung lower, so he jumped up and over it towards the attacker. He kicked off the surprised Knight's head and pumped its head with ionised particles, the proximity, and critical location rendering its shield useless as it died immediately.
The first Knight attempted to take advantage of his airborne position, swinging at him once more. His second jump meant the attempt was wasted, as Cooper easily cleared the Knight, dumping a barrage of lead into its exposed, and unshielded back as he fell.
Master Chief blinked. The Pilot had eliminated the two significant threats in a manner that was not only incredibly efficient, but also incredibly impressive, all the while carrying himself like it was just another day.
"I see what you mean about them being tough," Cooper remarked, sending the empty magazine from his weapon with a flick of his wrist, "Took me a whole mag after I broke its shield," he finished, pulling back the bolt of his rifle, chambering a new round from the fresh magazine.
Chief looked around the battlefield, this time studying more than just the layout that would affect horizontal movement. All the possibilities that could come a short wall-run, or from a second jump, a slide, a wall-jump. So many options revealed themselves, and his companion had access to all of them, along with the skills and experience to utilise them effectively.
Master Chief was very glad the Pilot was on his side.
"Yes," he answered, "Though it seems to still be effective against the Covenant.
Cooper nodded in response, "How tough are the Elite's shields? They as hard as the ones the Knights have?"
"No," Chief said with a shake of his helmeted head, "You should be able to break the shield, and the kill the Elite before your magazine is empty," he answered. The 30 rounds he had counted would be sufficient, he concluded, having seen its effectivity against the Grunts.
Cooper sighed, "Good. Those things are scary lookin' up close," he remarked, and Chief felt his lips twitch in amusement, before he walked to the corpse of a Grunt, taking its weapon.
"What's that?" Cooper asked.
"A Plasma Pistol," Cortana answered, her avatar appearing over the Chief's shoulder, "An overcharged shot can break an Elite's shield in one hit, and has minor homing properties. Along with an armour piercing weapon, it's an excellent way to eliminate Sangheili warriors without much difficulty,"
Cooper nodded, seeing its use.
"Want one?" Cortana asked, gesturing at another weapon on the floor.
Cooper shook his head, patting a pistol on his thigh, "Nah. It may be useful, but not as useful as this," he responded, Cortana nodding in understanding
"What is it?" Chief asked.
"A Smart Pistol," Cortana began, "It's an emergency weapon that Titans carry with their AI Core, in case they're destroyed. It syncs with the Pilots' HUD (Head's Up Display) and automatically locks on, and tracks, targets in proximity to them," she explained.
Chief understood why he kept it over the Plasma Pistol. Such a weapon was too valuable to ever give up.
They continued forward, and encountered another conflict between the Covenant and Prometheans, this one with significantly more casualties, making their clean-up effort all the easier.
They acquired additional ammunition for their weapons, along with a pair of plasma grenades each from the slain enemies, as well as a 'Hardlight Shield' one of the Knights dropped for Chief to use, before Cortana pointed them to a ramped outcropping near the end of the area.
They rounded the corner, and witnessed a Knight brutally dispatch an Elite with its sword arm. They reacted quickly, Cooper pumping it with ionised particles to break it shield, and Chief following up with a burst into its helmet to finish it off.
Up near the top of the ramp were three Watchers, the flying foes that the Knights could conjure. One began to bathe a platform at the top in blue light. Chief had seen it before. It is what one had attempted on the body of its fallen summoner. He tried firing at it, but was forced back into cover as the other two provided covering fire.
Cooper tilted his head towards a short rocky wall a few metres ahead, and Chief nodded in response, lifting up three fingers. Two fingers. One finger.
Chief leant out to return fire with the fully automatic Suppressor as Cooper jumped against the rock wall next to them and kicked off it towards the next piece of cover. Cooper slid behind it just as the space he had previously occupied was suddenly filled with a bright, hot, orange beam of light.
Chief recognised the sound of a large energy discharge, a loud, high pitched hiss, as Cooper turned back to him.
"Turret!" he shouted, having just spotted the large, triangular structure that was now floating in the empty space the Watcher had previously been lighting up.
The beam vanished a second later, and the sound with it, replaced instead with a low hum that was gradually building in volume and pitch. Cooper peaked out fired a long burst at it with the R-201, with unfortunately small results.
He ducked back into cover as the whine reached its apex, and it unleashed another blistering beam at the space his head was just in.
"Cover me!" Cooper called to Chief, before waiting a moment longer for the beam to disappear. Chief agreed with a nod, and leant out to start firing at the Watchers again, though at this range, the Suppressor was more of a scare tactic than an effective weapon.
Cooper stood, unhooked a Firestar from his belt, and lobbed the adhesive shuriken of thermite at the turret. The Watcher closest to it, unfortunately, had another idea. It caught the grenade in what they could only assume was a magnetic field, rotated it around beneath it, and hurled it back at the startled Pilot.
Mental note. Never throw a grenade when a Watcher is around.
Cooper dived out from his cover as it became flooded with burning thermite, right into the turrets line of fire as the charge once again reached its peak.
"Chief!" Cortana yelled, though he was already moving. Standing firm in front of the scrambling Pilot, he lifted the Hardlight Shield, and prayed it would be strong enough as the turret unleashed.
The Shield held as Cooper managed to get back on his feet. Drawing his Smart Pistol, his HUD immediately began working on locks for the Watchers through the, thankfully transparent, Shield. Four locks on each Watcher were established as the turret finished its bombardment.
"Drop it!" he called to the Chief and the Shield went down, followed immediately by 12 shots ringing out in quick succession. The Watchers all detonated, and the pair focused fire on the turret. One magazine of the R-201, and four bursts from the Light Rifle later, and the turret collapsed into glowing polygons, disintegrating entirely.
Cooper huffed loudly, "Let's not do that again," he groaned, "And thanks for the save,"
"Agreed," the Chief returned simply.
Then walked to the top of the ramp, and stopped before a short drop when they heard a low whine.
Two Elites, riding floating, purple, vehicles rounded the corner at high speed, only for the first to be gunned out of his seat by a Knight a short distance away, and the other to be speared on its blade as it attempted to get past.
Focused fire from the Chief and the Pilot quickly dealt with the Knight, and awarded them with two Ghosts, the vehicles the Elites had been using.
Cooper looked over the now grounded vehicles. They were roughly the size and shape of a two-wheeled motorcycle, though without wheels, and two wing-like appendages on the front of its form.
"Hop on," Cortana instructed him as Chief climbed into the other, as she put up an infographic of its controls on his HUD.
It was fortunately, very simple. A one-push button to start it, and two joysticks was all it came with. Left joystick controlled its omnidirectional movement, with the other controlled its rotation, and the pitch of the dual Plasma Repeaters on the front. A trigger on the left joystick activated the vehicles boost, while the trigger on the other fired its weapons. A small metre on the 'dashboard', what was actually a transmission from a front camera, displayed the level of charge on the boost, and that was everything.
He turned it on, and it jerked half a metre into the air, nearly tossing him from his seat. He tested the controls, and found the movement to all be working correctly. It stopped surprisingly quickly when he release the joystick, especially for a vehicle with no friction. With the help of Cortana, a crosshair appeared on his HUD, to roughly indicate where his shots would land when he fired the Repeaters.
They continued on their 'borrowed' vehicles past a crashed Phantom, a transport ship the Covenant used, towards their goal, the pylon. The high mobility, strong cover, and strong firepower the Ghosts offered, made the Covenant and Prometheans they encountered laughably easy to deal with.
With their path blocked, they began navigating through a cave that went in the general direction towards the pylon. Then another transmission began playing.
It was garbled and distorted beyond comprehension, unfortunately, so nothing could be discerned from it.
"The relay's signal is breaking up again," Cortana observed, "We're almost to the beam," she finished as the exited the cave.
There was another Covenant/Promethean skirmish just past the mouth of the cave, though this one was much smaller, and there was a wide Promethean door behind the combating forces. No Elites, nor Knights fought, however, there was a new species of alien.
To Jack, they looked to be some combination of reptilian and avian. The small, lithe creatures carried circular shields that nearly completely covered them. The two Kig-Yar, or Jackals, carried their shields in their left hands, one yellow, the other blue, while their rights held Plasma Pistols.
Upon Cooper and Master Chief arriving, and opening fire on the Crawlers, the Covenant forces cheered, until they rounded on the unsuspecting Jackals and Grunts and opened fire, gunning down the unsuspecting Covenant.
Cortana broadcasted another distorted transmission to them.
"They've found the opening!" she said in panic, "We'd better get up to that relay, and fast,"
The wide Promethean door opened into a long hallway as they approached it, and they sped through it, quickly coming to the exit.
The door at the end of the hall opened to reveal a structure identical to what they had found at the other pylon. However, this time, the area was already filled with combat. Gunfire filled their ears as they took stock of the heavy Covenant and Promethean presence.
To their left, Chief spotted an Elite making his way quickly to a grounded Banshee, a small, single occupant flying vehicle. Sleek in shape, with short and thin wings on either side.
He opened fire upon the Elite, but too late, as it managed to squeeze into the vehicle before the Ghost's Plasma Repeaters could cut through its shields. The Elite took to the skies quickly, in hopes to escape the Chief's onslaught.
Master Chief cursed himself. That had been a prime opportunity to not only reduce the amount of hostile Banshees he would have had to deal with, but also possibly secured one for himself. Banshees were always a pain to deal with. Agile, but with armour tough enough to shrug off most small arms fire, and impressive firepower curtesy of its Plasma Repeaters and Fuel Rod Cannon; it was an impressive display of the Covenant's craftsmanship.
A metallic ping sounded, and the Banshee shook as an explosion struck its cabin. The explosion, however, did little damage to the armour, serving as more of a distraction by itself. A second shot struck it, and then a third.
It was then that the Banshee's pilot began to panic. The Elite began boosting away as a barrage or rockets began hunting it through the air. The pilot, in a desperate attempt to survive, put the vehicle into a barrel roll, but the agile missiles had no difficultly tracking it through the manoeuvre and blasting it out of the air with a series of detonations.
Cooper grinned at the display, "Nice of you to join us BT," he said, tracking the vapour trails back to the source, his Titan, who dropped down from a tall outcropping of rock nearby, "Good to see you again buddy,"
"Likewise," BT responded in his ever serious tone, "Protocol 1: Link to Pilot. Cooper, please embark; we work better together,"
"Thought you'd never ask," he laughed, jumping from his Ghost to the cliff-face beside him, and then jumping from it to the open chassis of BT.
A sudden barrage of plasma forced Cooper to put up the Vortex Shield, dispersing the bolts along its surface. He looked up at the source. Another Banshee was taking a pass at them.
"Pilot," BT began, "Advise caution: Enemy aircraft, designate 'Banshee's, are equipped with some form of anti-locking technology. I cannot create a lock with the Multi-Target-Missile-System. You will need to paint them with the 40mm in order to destroy them with the Tracking Rockets,"
"Got it," he replied as the Banshee turned off its assault and boosted away, "Thanks for the head-up,"
"Protocol 3: Protect the Pilot," BT responded simply.
Cooper tried to strike the fleeing Banshee with the 40mm, but it was moving too quickly, and too erratically, for him to land the shots, and it escaped from the range of the Tracking Rockets, at which point he gave up.
"Protocol 2: Uphold the mission," BT said over the radio, "We must bring down the shield on the pylon quickly if we wish to contact the Infinity," he warned.
"Right!" Cortana agreed, "Can you keep the Banshees off us?" she asked.
"Can do," Cooper replied, keeping a close eye on the two visible vehicles.
"Great. Let's get going Chief," she responded.
Chief nodded, and began moving his Ghost towards the first power core, firing at loose patches of Grunts, Jackals, and Crawlers as he went.
Another Ghost appeared from within the complex, and began firing at the Master Chief's Ghost. The 40mm explosive that went off against its frontal armour caused its pilot to reassess the situation, turning to the colossal robot with no small degree of trepidation.
A second and third 40mm round hit the Ghost's chassis before the pilot returned fire, but the barrage of tracking missiles, fired over BT's Vortex Shield, blasted the vehicle into pieces, killing the single Elite occupant.
"Ghost down!" Cortana cheered, "I've found the closest of the shield's power cores. Marking it on your HUDs,"
Indeed, a glowing red beacon appeared on their respective video feeds, labelled 'Destroy. It was very close, only 43m from where they stood, so they made their way towards the core's containment cell.
However, it seemed the Covenant had already fortified it themselves. Large, rounded shields, similar to what the Jackals had carried, though much closer to transparent, grew from devices on the ground. They were large enough to fully cover a person from the front, and then some.
Behind the shields, next to the containment cell, there was a multitude of Covenant. Two Elites, and four Grunts. The Ghost, and BT together, had little difficulty finishing them off, and Chief was able to manoeuvre his Ghost close enough to be able to shoot the core without leaving the protection of his vehicle.
"Power core down," Cortana observed, "Shields weak, but still online,"
Cooper spotted a Banshee beginning to head in their direction, likely aiming to make a pass, all the while blasting them with plasma. Cooper started firing at it, and managed to land two shots before it turned and escaped out of his effective range.
"Take out the other two cores and we can access the pylon," Cortana informed.
They moved quickly to the second core, dispatching limited amounts of Covenant troops as they went.
"Second core down!" Cortana cheered, as Chief blasted the floating sphere with his Ghost, "Good jo- Sniper! Look out!"
A green beam blasted down at the Chief, striking him. Fortunately, it did no harm, as it was blocked by his armour's over-shield.
Cooper placed himself between Chief, and where the shot had come from, up the tower.
He fired a Pulse Blade from BT's left shoulder pod, a knife that emitted a high frequency pulse of sound as it struck. The Sonar equipment within his helmet then displayed the crouched and hidden forms of the three sniper rifle wielding Jackals that the sound pulse had discovered.
Unfortunately, with their vantage and cover, there was nothing he could do about them, unless they decided to reveal themselves.
Another Ghost rounded the corner, firing away at the Master Chief's now rather damaged vehicle. Cooper whipped around, firing a shot blindly at it. The shot, through pure luck, struck the back of it, blasting the Grunt pilot straight from its seat.
Jack blinked in surprise.
"I uh… got you a new Ghost?" he claimed.
"Nice shot," commented Chief with amusement, exiting his Ghost in favour of the new one.
"Third core isn't far," Cortana said, bringing them back to the mission at hand, "Let's get that shield down."
The gunfire had been steadily dying down, and they had yet to see any Prometheans. Had the Covenant driven them all off? It certainly seemed likely. The Covenant had both numbers, and firepower to their name, though from what Jack had seen, they weren't very intelligent. He had noticed that quite a few had repeated basic patterns when fighting and moving, which made them very easy to deal with.
They reached the last core containment, dealt with the Covenant easily, and Chief destroyed the core.
"That'll do it," Cortana said, "Shields should be down. Get up to that beam!"
Then Cooper noticed the Banshee coming in for another strafe.
He landed a shot with the 40mm cannon before being forced to bring up the Vortex Shield to protect against the plasma based counter-attack. Then the Banshee fired a large, slow moving, green ball of plasma at him, before pulling off the strafe and turning to escape.
Not taking any chances, Cooper dashed away. A loud woosh sounded as compressed air was released from many cavities on BT's chassis, boosting them out of the line of fire of the streaking green orb. It struck the ground moments later, releasing a large explosion and expelling super-heated plasma in every direction.
A smart move, but the Banshee pilot had made the mistake of getting too close. The two remaining shots that Cooper needed to land in order to confirm a missile lock were all too easy. He fired the short slavo and watched with dark amusement as the Sangheili tried to escape.
It activated the Banshee's boost and streaked away at high speeds, six highly mobile missiles slowly gaining on it. In a last ditch attempt, the pilot aimed straight up, rolling as he did. The rockets had no trouble, and cut it from the air with six closely timed detonations.
"You head up the tower, Master Chief," Cooper directed, "I'll keep the other Banshee off your back, and I'll meet you up there, just like last time."
"Understood," Chief responded, and made way to the ramp, keeping his eye out for the snipers that had been spotted earlier.
Actually, he didn't have to look for them, did he?
"Cooper," he said over the radio, as he made his way up the ramp to the top of the tower, "Can you put a Sonar Pulse above my position?"
"Got it," he replied immediately, sending the dart, as requested.
The blade sunk into the forerunner structure, and sent out the sonic pulse. Cortana received it, and nearly instantaneously converted it into a visual outline of three Jackals, stationed above him, looking down, but away from where he was.
He rushed up, and quickly put them down before they could become an issue, using the Suppressor for the short engagement range, before continuing up to the where the Lightbridge was located.
"Ready when you are, Pilot," he informed over comms.
"Coming right up," Cooper responded, exiting BT's chassis, and letting BT wrap his large, mechanical hand around his midsection, preparing the throw.
"Chief!" Cortana warned, "Banshee! Get down!"
Chief ducked behind a half height wall as the last Banshee strafed him, approaching from the opposite side of the tower than BT and Cooper.
"Go BT! Now!" Cooper ordered, pulling him only available Anti-Armour weapon from his back, a Charge Rifle.
"Good luck," BT said, and threw him high into the air.
He spotted the Banshee as he flew into the sky, and held down the trigger of the Charge Rifle, slowly charging the powerful laser.
Cooper reached the apex of the throw, and took aim. The Charge Rifle fired, a bright yellow beam of energy and heat cutting straight through the Banshee's frontal armour, and out the other side.
The Banshee fell as Cooper did, sporting a large hole near the centre of its forward armour, although, unlike him, it missed the tower, and plummeted to the surface much further below.
"Nice shot," Master Chief commended, standing back up from his crouched position in cover, as he observed the Pilot's weapon. It was not dissimilar from a Spartan Laser, though it was significantly smaller, but less powerful. He doubted it could do similar damage to a more heavily armoured target, like a Wraith.
"Thanks," Cooper said, smiling slightly beneath his helmet, "Now, let's get this beam down."
Master Chief nodded, and once again took the lead across the Lightbridge, and down the keyhole shaped hallway to the elevator.
"UNCS Infinity to Survivor," came another transmission, in the best clarity they had yet heard, the image of a man's face now much more distinguishable, "Forward Unto Daw-w-w-wn. We're reading a faint IFF tag near the pl-planetary core. Do you read?"
"That planet's core?" Cortana asked in shock, "They know we're here! Infinity, this is UNSC AI Cortana! Do not approach Forerunner planet! Repeat; do not approach-"
"Infinity to UNSC asset; we read you, but you're breaking up!" came the transmission, before the man turned to his left"Helm, increase speed by point-seven. Get us in there."
"Negative Infinity!" Cortana shouted, "Do not enter the planet!"
"If you can hear us," he continued, "keep transmitting."
"No! Chief, you've got to get that beam down now!" Cortana ordered sharply.
Chief ran for the control switch and grabbed the handle, pulling it out half a metre, rotating it a quarter turn right, pulling another half-metre, rotating an eighth turn left, another pull, another eighth turn left, then finally, slammed it back in, and shut off the beam.
"Cortana to Infinity; do you copy? Come in, Infinity!" she said, "The interference is gone, but none of our transmitters are strong enough."
"You said that satellite was acting like a relay right? Can you route us up there?" Cooper asked.
"Already done," Cortana said as a new portal opened just ahead of them, "Straight through that portal!"
Together, they ran through the portal, back to the hub room they had been in earlier, and kept running, straight up towards a new portal.
"BT," Cortana addressed, "I can't find a portal location large enough to get you to the satellite yet. Just make your way back to the portal that got you there, and I'll keep searching."
"Understood. Pilot Cooper, Master Chief; Good luck."
"Thanks BT," Cooper returned.
"Once we're on the satellite," Cortana began again, "there's bound to be a central control point."
"The Covenant are heading there too!" Cooper observed.
"This doesn't make any sense!" Cortana exclaimed as they went through the portal, "Why would they care about a broadcast relay?"
"We'll handle them," Chief started, "you just find us that control node."
They'd arrived on a long, wide, walkway, with the satellite ahead of them. It was a large sphere, roughly 40 metres in diameter, made of large plates that decreased in size and increased in number the lower they went. Between each plate, the core could be seen; a bright yellow, magma looking sphere just underneath the plates.
"How long until Infinity hit's the gravity well?" Cooper asked, as a Phantom, a Covenant dropship, stopped at the end of the walkway and started depositing troops.
"A minute or two max," Cortana answered.
Not waiting for the Covenant to get a foothold ahead of them, Master Chief began firing upon them as they dropped from the large vehicle.
"The Covenant are making a push for something on the far side of the satellite," Cortana said as Cooper activated the Cloak unit within his armour, and he shimmered out of visibility, so he could safely get to a better firing position.
Chief watched in fascination as the Pilot flickered twice, then nearly completely vanished from sight. The only thing leaving him visible was a slight discolouration, as though the space he occupied had been just slightly brightened. There was no shimmer in the air, and it didn't seem to be affected in the slightest by his movement, unlike the camouflage units the Covenant had access to.
With how quickly the Pilot was already moving, having kicked off a wall and into the air, he doubted many but another Spartan would be able to spot him.
He continued firing into their quickly thinning ranks as the Pilot began firing, surprisingly, still in Cloak. It seemed that not even gunfire could deter the camouflage.
Chief stopped shooting when the Pilot leapt into close quarters, the few remaining Grunts screaming in alarm as a new foe suddenly revealed himself just a few metres away, already firing.
Cooper decimated the few that remained, and Cortana pointed them to two routes, one going around to each side. They picked the left, pressed a button to open the door, and ran up a long ramp.
At the top of the ramp was a battlefield. The Covenant and Prometheans had set up on either side, the Covenant closest to them, and were too busy attacking one another to notice the two new arrivals.
They quickly fired upon the Covenant while their backs were still turned, managing to kill most before they realised the threat behind them.
Cooper decided that, with their limited time, he'd use his Charge Rifle to dispatch the Knights, despite his very limited ammunition for it. He charged and fired a shot, and was pleased to see that it killed the Knight that had been approaching them in a single hit.
With all the enemies dealt with, they continued up and around to the opposite side of the satellite.
"Guys!" Cortana began, "You need to hear this!"
"We're detecting a slight gravimetric response near the planetary entrance," came a female voice, "Suggest altering approach vector; Four-Five-Kilo dash Seven-Five-Zero-Kilo dash One-Two-Kilo."
"They're not diverting from the opening! Hurry!" Cortana exclaimed.
They reached the top, and found three Elites in a standoff against three Knights and a turret.
Thinking quick, Cooper tossed a Firestar onto the turret, and let the burning thermite take it out of the equation before it could start doing serious damage, before unstrapping his Charge Rifle and taking aim at the Knights.
Meanwhile, Master Chief engaged the Elites. He tossed a frag greanade at their feet, and they dived away in a panic, two directly away from him, and one straight to the side. He drew the Plasma Pistol he had retrieved earlier, and held down the trigger to ready an over-charged shot, before firing it at the closest Elite. The Elite, still recovering from the roll, couldn't dodge, and the large ball of plasma collided with its over-shield, and immediately stripped it bare, allowing the Chief to finish it off with a precise shot to the head with his Magnum.
Cooper, having finished the Knights, turned to assist. He activated his Cloak, and sprinted around the cover the Elites were using. He fired his Scattershot into the flank of an Elite from near point-blank just as his Cloak's charge burned out, and he returned to visibility. The other Elite turned, a testament to its impressive reflexes, but was met with a kick to the face. It stumbled back, and Chief followed up, spear tackling it around the middle and bringing it to the floor. He then drew the large knife from his breastplate, and plunged it into the Elite's neck.
"Over there!" Cortana alerted, "There's the control node!"
A blue ping marked the twin short podiums, just twenty metres away from where they stood.
They ran to it, and Chief quickly placed his hands upon the podiums.
"Infinity; this is Sierra One-One-Seven of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn. Do you copy?" Chief said.
"Infinity; this is Sierra One-One-Seven of the UNSC-" the satellite repeated with multiple, overlapping voices, both high and low in pitch.
Chief paused for a moment, waiting for a response, looking to the satellite, its edges shimmering like an incredible heat wave was emanating from its surface.
"Infinity, do you read?" Chief asked again.
"Infinity, do you read?" the satellite repeated.
The satellite slowly began to rise, and all at once, all the sounds of combat suddenly ceased.
"Chief… Chief, let go of the contacts," Cortana ordered anxiously.
He looked on for another moment, before jerking his hands off the podiums and taking a couple steps backwards, drawing his Lightrifle.
Cooper tightened his grip on the Scattershot. He wasn't sure what it was, but he felt undeniably… off.
"Find us an exit," he told Cortana.
"Don't wait around on my account!" she replied.
Chief turned and grabbed Cooper's arm, before pulling them both over the edge towards a platform a few metres below. They crouched behind a short wall just as the satellite released a pulse of force, washing over them powerfully, even behind cover.
They peaked back over the wall to watch as the plating around the bottom of the sphere shifted and moved away and upwards, and a small platform, with eight blade like extensions rising above it lowered from within it, a humanoid figure crouched upon it.
The eight extensions slowly lowered, until they were parallel, then the figure began to stand. They watched as it stretched, and pieces of armour floated through the air, and began forming over its skin.
"So fades the great harvest of my betrayal," it said, its voice many deep, overlapping tones.
It turned left, still facing away from the hiding duo, and waved its arm at a group of fighting Elites and Knights lazily. As they watched, the Knights' colours shifted, from blue, to a sinister orange, matching the figure's own armour. The Elites, instead of drawing their arms, dropped them, and bowed.
"Even these beasts recognise what you were oblivious to Humans," it said, "Your nobility has blinded you, as ever."
The short wall they stood behind began breaking out into patches of orange as it slowly corroded away.
Cooper quickly lifted three fingers, and counted down, and together they stood and began firing upon the figure.
Or that was the plan, at least. The figure trust a hand at them as they stood, and an invisible force wrapped around them, pulling their arms to the side, and dragging them into the air, unable to move.
They were pulled by the invisible force towards the figure. It was clearly alien. Skin was present on a slightly avian face, but was lacking on the side of its head and neck, revealing the muscle underneath. Its face lacked a nose, and its eyes were sunken, while short fangs protruded from its closed mouth.
"The Librarian left little to chance, didn't she?" he said in his eerie voice, "Turning my own guardians-" he turned to the Knights below, "my own world… against me. But what hubris to believe she could protect her pets from me forever."
He observed the pair for a moment, before turning back and scrutinising the Elites.
"If you haven't mastered these primitive," he said, motioning at the Elites with a tilt of his head, "then Man has not yet attained the Mantle. Your ascendance may yet be prevented."
The creature tightened his invisible grip around them tauntingly.
"Time was your ally, Humans, but now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners have returned."
Armour plating spread over, and covered his face with a helmet.
"This tomb… is now yours."
He flicked his arm back, and they were flung away, into a wall, before falling to the ground.
They slowly pulled themselves to their feet as the platform began to lift, returning the creature back into the large sphere, large trails of red and orange energy circling it.
"Slipspace rupture!" Cortana said in alarm, "Move!"
They turned and ran as hard as they could away, before diving as they reached the end of the walkway, and the sphere went into slipspace.
Cooper pulled his eyelids apart. It took significantly more effort than it should have, and that worried him.
He stumbled to his feet, and spotted Chief lying next to him.
"Cooper!" Cortana began, "We've gotta get out of here! Get Chief up!"
He nodded groggily, and bent down to take a hold of Chief's armoured wrist. He pulled, but found that the Master Chief was incredibly heavy with all that armour.
"Chief, please! We've gotta go!" Cortana said as he began to wake.
Chief pushed himself up, and got to his knees, then his feet.
"That… Didact," she began, "He manipulated Infinity's signal to get us to release him!"
"What's happening?" Chief asked.
"Moving the satellite into slipspace destabilised the core," she answered.
Two Phantoms, in their too hasty attempt to escape, crashed into one another, and then crashed once more onto the ground ahead of them.
"The Didact's leaving. We've gotta find a portal out of here before the whole network collapses!" she continued as they began making their way forward.
"What about BT?" Cooper asked, concerned for his companion.
"Already sent him to the surface. I found a portal point up there, but it's no use if we can't find a portal to get us there."
They stepped over a short ridge, and found a multitude of Ghosts had fallen from the crashed Phantoms.
"Grab one of those Ghosts. Sorry Jack, but you're just gonna have to hang on."
"What? Why? There's plenty here," he said, gesturing at the other available vehicles as Master Chief activated his Ghost.
"Just trust me," Cortana pleaded.
Cooper nodded, and jumped onto the back of the Chief's Ghost, grabbing the giant of a man's shoulders.
"You good?" Cortana asked.
He shifted around for another moment, then nodded.
"Alright, hang on. I'm gonna channel energy from your shields to overdrive the Ghost's boost."
She finished, and Chief activated the boost, accelerating away at an incredible rate. The boost, also, did not seem to be running out.
With the first moment of acceleration, Cooper held tight to Chief's shoulders, but quickly used his Jump-Kit to stabilise himself. It wasn't the worst thing he'd had to hang on to, ironically. A dashing Titan was never an easy thing to keep hold of.
As they boosted along, the ground rumbled, and pieces of rock started flying away from the ground as it began to collapse.
"Emergency broadcast from Infinity!" Cortana said as they boosted though a cave system.
"Fleetcom; this is Infinity!" came the transmission, "We are encountering and unidentifiable gravimetric disturbance and are being pulled inside a planet of Forerunner origin!"
They flew out of the cave, only to find their surroundings had deteriorated even more. Walls to either side of the pass were being pushed in, crushing the rock under it and sending it flying into the sky.
"Possible contact with UNSC Forward Unto Dawn!" the transmission continued, "Jettisoning complete log beacons as last known!"
They followed the pass left, and it opened out, only to collapse underneath them.
"Cortana, we need to get up there," Chief said.
"It's not like I can get out and push!" she retorted, as they sailed through the open air to reach the next part of their path.
They hit the ground hard, but the Ghost's levitation was thankfully enough to prevent them from splatting against the rock.
"Portal!" Cortana cheered, "Up ahead!"
And indeed, they could spot it. Only thing was, it was suspended in the air.
Chief pushed the Ghost harder, and ramped of into the air, and straight through the portal.
A flash of light later, and the Ghost, and three occupants were on the surface, heading towards a cliff at high speed.
"Woah cowboy!"
Cooper immediately kicked off, and doubled jumped to bring himself to a near complete stop.
Chief followed his lead, jamming the brakes of the Ghost on, and kicking off it.
But it wasn't enough.
"BT!" Cooper screamed.
A large metal hand wrapped around the Master Chief just as he slid off the edge after the Ghost.
"I've got you," BT said, pulling Chief back, and placing him back on solid ground.
Cooper gave a loud huff of relief. "Great job, buddy," he said, giving the large mech a thumbs-up, to which BT returned, before striding over, lifting him up, and placing Cooper back within his chassis.
"There! Look!" Cortana pointed out.
Through the dense cloud, came something Jack wasn't sure he believed.
It was a ship. That much he could understand. What he was struggling with was comprehending its size. Had it been place beside those gigantic, kilometre long Covenant vessels, it would have dwarfed them many times over.
While the Covenant vessels carried a sort of smooth beauty, all sleek and smooth curves, this monstrosity was built for function. Sharp angles and aggressive edges defined its structure, in a (very) rough cylindrical shape.
"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is the captain of the UNSC Infinity. Unknown entity has seized control of our ship! We're without power, and on collision course with an unidentified Forerunner planet! We are going down! I repeat; we are going down! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!"
Ship passed over them, and even at its incredible altitude, the wind currents still nearly swept them off their feet.
"Track its decent," Chief ordered quickly.
"Marking," Cortana responded, "Impact predicted 77.8 kilometres due north."
"Confirmed," agreed BT.
With another shudder, the sphere containing the Didact rose over the cliffs behind them, before it turned, did a brief scan, and shot off at hyper-sonic speeds after the descending Infinity.
"You know where he's heading," Cortana predicted.
"Same place we are," Chief answered.
So another 8k words, and I'm only through one mission. God damn. And there are what, ten of these? Thank god I skipped two lol. I'm joking. I honestly really enjoy writing this, and I'm especially proud of the Pilot combat. Yes, 'A fan', I saw your review, (I read all of them), and totally agree. Titans are super OP, so I hope I gave Cooper enough ground time to shine.
Also, I decided to upload all my works to AO3, as those of you reading on AO3 obviously know, under the same name, so if that's your preferred platform, you can change over to it.
Sorry this took so long to do, I decided to take a break from writing to prevent burnout, but now I'm back in the action! So I'll also be putting up a poll on my profile for how often this gets updated, from alternating weekly with my main fic, to once every four weeks. i.e. 1:1, 1:2, or 1:3 chapters of this, to chapters of my main fic.
Sorry AO3 readers, I don't think you can put up polls on here. If there is, and I'm just dumb, let me know, and I'll put it up as soon as I see it.
That's all for this chapter, I'll see you all again in, at most, 4 weeks!
Yours sincerely, H3ctic.
Word count
Chapter: 8,119
Story: 16,655
